


Accidental Confession

by mimi_cee



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Cute, F/M, Fluff, High School, Humor, Rare Pairings, Romance, Volleyball, tsukiyachi, tsukkiyachi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 28,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22037233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimi_cee/pseuds/mimi_cee
Summary: Noticing that Yachi is friends with the first year volleyball members, her classmate asks her to give a card to Tsukishima. The next thing she knows is that Tsukishima thinks she confessed to him.Tsukiyachi in first 13 chaptersYamaguchi/ OC side story in the last twoTsukiyachi drabbles/oneshots at the end
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yachi Hitoka, Yamaguchi Tadashi/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 106
Kudos: 327





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place after the Nationals but at the time of writing this, season 4 hasn't come out yet. This fic starts of with a little prologue and then goes back to about a month before. Let me know if you enjoy the story. This story will probably be just over 10 chapters based on my outline but I'm not sure yet.

**Prologue**

"Did you put this in my bag?" asked Tsukishima, gesturing to the card that he held.

Yachi's jaw dropped. She thought nobody had seen her. In the gym, she had tried to stealthily walk to Tsukishima's bag and had peered around to make sure nobody saw what she was doing. But now she knew that she had obviously failed.

"Yes," she said hastily, panicking. She didn't know what to do. She mentally blamed her classmate, Yumi, for asking her do this. She didn't know how he'd react to knowing that she was sneaking around his gym bag.

Yumi had a huge crush on Tsukishima. According to her friends, she had a thing for tall guys with glasses, so of course, he fit the bill. But Yumi didn't have the guts to speak to him, so she asked Yachi to give him the card. Yachi didn't want to give the card to him, so she thought it was a good idea to put it in his bag.

"Are you free after volleyball practice today?" asked Tsukishima.

Yachi blinked a couple of times before she replied confused, "Yes...?"

"Okay. Wait for me after practice," he said.

That was strange. She thought he'd be mad for going into his bag. "Oh, okay. But why?"

Tsukishima shrugged. "I don't know. We can grab some food. Maybe watch a movie. I don't know what I'm really supposed to do," he said without much excitement in his voice.

Yachi nodded. "Sure...," she said, although she didn't feel very sure at all.

The bell rang, signalling that their lunch break was over.

"You know," Tsukishima added as he got up, "you should make sure to write your name on the card. I only knew that it was from you because Yamaguchi told me."

"Oh, okay," Yachi said in a daze. "I'll do that next time."

But it wasn't until after Tsukishima left that she realized what had just happened.

* * *

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Yachi's friends weren't fazed at all by her antics. Screaming at random times was something that was the norm for Yachi. Her brain often dreamed up fairly outrageous scenarios and they simply thought that this was likely another one of those.

"Mei-chan," Yachi cried to her best friend. "What do I do~~~?"

Mei smirked at her. "What happened this time?"

"I think I accidentally confessed to someone!" Yachi said with tears streaming from her eyes.

Mei had to blink a few times before what she said actually registered in her brain. Then she laughed out loud. "You never told me you liked someone. So whom did you confess to?"

Yachi shook her head. "No- no. It's not like that. Umm... you see... uhh...," she shifted her eyes nervously, "someone thought I confessed to him because I gave him a card which contained... someone else's confession."

Mei initially tried to hold in her laughter, but that failed. She slapped Yachi on the back a couple of times. "How do you get yourself into these situations?"

"What do you mean? This has never happened before!"

"So who's the lucky guy?" Mei asked while stifling her giggle.

"Uhh... someone on the volleyball team..."

Mei gave her a smile. "Seems like things have gotten interesting for you once you became a manager for their volleyball team."

Yachi sighed. It definitely has been. She reminisced on her experience as a manager. At the beginning, she didn't understand a lot of the volleyball terms and height of all the players scared her. But now, with some of Tsukishima's help, she knew how to record notes for their matches and learned how to tape up the players' hands.

The two of them had gotten closer recently. Yachi could actually have a conversation with Tsukishima now. But she really didn't want to explain that his assumption was a mistake. She did put the card in his bag but she didn't write it.

Yachi didn't know what to do. The last thing she wanted was for things to get awkward between them. It would make things more complicated.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this is chapter 1 of the story but with AO3's labelling, it says "Chapter 2: Chapter 1." Totally not confusing right?

**Chapter 1**

_**About one month ago** _

Takeda-sensei had organized another practice match. Choyaku High was in the quarter finals in their neighbouring region. They were one of the favourites to go to the nationals, but they were matched early with the team that ended up winning the tournament.

Typically, Takada-sensei wouldn't be accepting practice matches after the national tournament in Tokyo. Volleyball activities usually died down around this time of the school year. According to his sources, their team had some interesting spikers, so he wanted to see how Karasuno's first and second years would fair against them. For Coach Ukai, it was an opportunity to regroup a bit before the players started focusing on studying for their finals.

Of course, Choyaku High was delighted to be playing a team that had made it to the nationals. Their coach had always said that playing against stronger teams accelerated a team's growth in both motivation and skill. So when Karasuno accepted the invitation, the practice game was immediately scheduled the following week.

The teams marched over to the court and stood in their assigned places. The referee blew the whistle and the match started.

Kageyama served for the first point. Their opponents were amazed at the speed of the serve, but it didn't faze them. After they finally got the ball up after a few tries, Tsukishima missed the timing of the block.

Tsukishima sighed. _"Another team with a different block timing,"_ he thought.

A few points later, the other team started showing more of their cards. Ikaeru was the middle blocker that Tsukishima often faced off with due to their rotation. He and their setter had a knack for messing up Tsukishima's timing. Half of the time, Ikaeru delayed his jump before he hit the ball. Tsukishima would jump too early for those hits and the receivers would have to get it.

Ikaeru smirked at Tsukishima every time the ball got passed him. It was no surprise that Tsukishima wasn't too happy about this. He watched them to see if there was anything different with Ikaeru's approach or in the set. But he couldn't catch on to anything during the first set of their match. Although Karasuno had won that set, Tsukishima wasn't happy with his performance.

Tsukishima walked out of the gym. Although he was annoyed, there was only a slight frown on his face. As he turned the corner, Yachi bumped into him and dropped the water bottles she had just filled.

"I'm sorry!" exclaimed Yachi as she bowed in apology multiple times.

Tsukishima sighed, "It's fine."

Yachi examined his face with a knowing look. She had noticed Tsukishima's discouragement during the game, but she didn't know how to help. As the two of them started picking up the water bottles that had fallen, Yachi struggled with the words to say to encourage Tsukishima.

"It looked like you were trying to guess block during the game," noted Yachi, "as if you were trying to guess if the opponent was going to play rock, paper, or scissors." Yachi thought back to how Tsukishima had looked. Sometimes he jumped way too early and other times it was late. It was so uncharacteristic of him that when she remembered how it looked, a small laugh slipped out of her mouth.

Tsukishima sent a glare at her, which made her swiftly shift ten steps back.

"Sorry, sorry!" she apologized profusely. "I didn't mean to laugh! It just... slipped?" As Tsukishima headed back, Yachi added, "But wait! Umm..."

"What is it?" Tsukishima raised an eyebrow. Yachi wasn't sure if that was out of interest or annoyance.

"I think...," Yachi stumbled over her words, "that volleyball isn't like rock, paper, scissors... I think... Your outcomes aren't weighted equally, right? Like minimizing risk or something like that? I don't know what I'm talking about. Why am I talking even though I can't even play volleyball? You know volleyball a lot better than me. I don't know what I was thinking. I don't think that was helpful at all." She panicked and then laughed nervously.

Within the next minute, Tsukishima's eyes lit up, which didn't get past Yachi's notice. Tsukishima smirked at her, "You're actually pretty smart."

Yachi shyly rubbed the back of her neck. "I'm not that smart," she denied. "But if anything I said helped, I'm glad," she smiled. After Tsukishima helped her carry the water bottles, they walked back to the gym together. Yachi was excited to see how Tsukishima would play after his epiphany.

Before the second set started, Tsukishima discussed his new tactic with the team. He would need their help to cover for him. After the set started, Yachi noticed that Tsukishima was prioritizing the timing of Ikaeru's regular hitting approach over his delayed one. Tsukishima realized that Ikaeru's hits were weaker with the delayed approach because he had to stop his momentum in order to perform it. So Tsukishima trusted his teammates to receive those ones. But he made sure to block the regular hits and put it away. When he did, he glanced at Yachi, only to see her cheering for him. "Way to go, Tsukishima!" she said with a big grin.

Choyaku High started to catch on to their strategy. The setter began to utilize their wing spikers more, which Tsukishima handled well with his read blocking skills. Meanwhile, Ikaeru started getting annoyed that the setter didn't set the ball to him. Between points, he took him aside and told him, "Just do the delayed set more. I'll make sure to put it away." Meanwhile, Tsukishima watched from the net, like a crow waiting to devour.

Ennoshita served the ball and the opponent's libero received it. Ikaeru ran up to spike at first tempo and the ball left the setter's hands. As Ikaeru was about to jump after delaying it, he and the setter were shocked to see that Tsukishima didn't jump yet. He had read their play. Ikaeru hit the ball into Tsukishima's block and their wing spiker was there to follow up and cover the ball from the block.

The setter decided to try and send the ball to Ikaeru again. They used the delayed approach thinking that Tsukishima wouldn't read them a second time, but this time Tsukishima blocked it again and the ball hit the ground.

"How did he guess that we'd do the same thing twice?" yelled out their setter in frustration. But Tsukishima didn't guess. He wasn't going for their delayed approach initially but that didn't mean he had stopped observing. Over the course of these sets, he had been watching their every move to the details. That accomplishment was so satisfying that Tsukishima cheered with his teammates. He looked over at Yachi and then suddenly regretted it.

"Tsukki, Tsukki! He's the best! He will put your spike to rest!" cheered Yachi.

_"Ugh... Don't tell me she was expecting that block so she could use that cheer,"_ Tsukishima mentally complained. Apparently, the rest of the bench liked the cheer enough that they joined in until Tsukishima told them to shut up.

Tanaka slapped his back and laughed, "But they're right. That was great Tsukishima."

After this set, they played three more sets to make it a complete five set match. Karasuno had won by the third, but practice matches were meant for practice. As they helped clean up, Tanaka came over to Tsukishima to intentionally bother him.

"Hey... Don't tell me that I didn't notice you checking out Kiyoko-san during the match," he nudged Tsukishima. "Were you trying to impress her?" Hearing Kiyoko's name, Nishinoya came over to join in.

"I wasn't," Tsukishima denied flatly.

Nishinoya completely ignored his denial. "It's fine. It's understandable that you kept glancing at her. But make sure that you don't get too distracted during our games," he grinned.

Knowing that neither Tanaka nor Nishinoya were listening, Tsukishima didn't bother defending his actions and brushed them off.

* * *

Kageyama had discussed with Coach Ukai on some areas of improvement that he wanted to work on. So he booked another gym for the team to work on individual skills knowing that the rest of the team would like this as well.

"Tsukishima, come practice with me, dammit," stated Kageyama.

Annoyed, Tsukishima asked, "Is that supposed to be a question?"

Kageyama tried again, "I want to see which set you like, dumbass."

_"What the heck?"_ Tsukishima was obviously ticked off by Kageyama like usual, but he went to practice with him anyway.

The two tested out different set heights and tempos. Nishinoya came to join to receive Tsukishima's hits and Yachi also came to help by tossing the ball to Kageyama.

"Your spikes are pretty weak," commented Kageyama. "Nishinoya-senpai got most of your spikes."

Tsukishima shrugged, "He's just good. And it's not like I'm the ace."

"You're still an attacker though, dumbass."

"Whatever."

Yachi sighed. _"Why don't they just get along?"_ she thought to herself.

Hinata joined to practice with Kageyama and Tsukishima switched over to blocking. As Tsukishima and Hinata battled at the net, Hinata tried to hit the ball at the blocks from different angles while Tsukishima tried to counter each one of his attempts. Their sets, spikes and blocks continued until practice has ended.

Tsukishima went to grab his water bottle, but as soon as he grasped it, he winced in pain and let the bottle drop. He examined his fingers and sighed. He must have not realized his injury during their practice. Yachi noticed Tsukishima's tense expression. "Did you hurt your hand again?" she asked.

He blinked a few times before saying, "Yes," and pointed to the knuckle on his ring finger.

Yachi grinned. "Great!"

_"Great?"_ he thought. He always knew that Yachi was a little strange but he never expected her to be happy over someone's injury.

"Yeah! Now I get to practice taping!" she exclaimed. Tsukishima snorted. He thought she was actually concerned for him, but it looked like she was just looking for an opportunity to practice.

"It doesn't need to be taped right now," said Tsukishima. "We're done practice so having my fingers taped now will be only be bothersome." Yachi frowned. Tsukishima noticed that she had already dug out the tape from the medical supplies, as if she was waiting to pounce on the opportunity to tend to one of the players. As she started to put the tape back, he added, "But if you really want to practice, I guess you can just remove the tape afterwards."

Yachi's eyes lit up when she realized her chance wasn't lost after all. Tsukishima and Yachi sat next to each other on the gym floor and she scooped his hand into hers. As she started to gently wrap the tape around his finger, Tsukishima told her, "That hurt."

"What?" Yachi freaked out while letting go of whatever was in her hands. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I know I'm still learning, but I didn't mean to hurt you!" She finally stopped babbling when she saw the glint that Tsukishima had in his eye.

"I was joking," he said flatly with a smirk. Yachi's jaw dropped open. She looked at his hand then decided to firmly grasp Tsukishima's sore knuckle until he wailed just enough to satisfy her. Then she promptly gave his hand back, got up, and stomped away.

"You totally deserved that," stated Hinata.

"I guess not even Yachi is immune to your shitty personality," added Kageyama.

Tsukishima glared at the two of them and they flinched. It was apparent that they had never seen Yachi react with petty revenge, and it was fairly amusing. But the team couldn't blame her for responding the way she did. But a moment later, the three saw Yachi stomp back to them.  


"I'm sorry!" Yachi cried as she prostrated herself on the ground and bowed multiple times to Tsukishima. "I have no idea why I did that! Please don't kill me!"

Hinata and Kageyama snickered at Tsukishima as he struggled with how to respond. Slight annoyance grew on Tsukishima's face and he sighed. "I'm not going to kill you, Yachi-san."


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"Ugh... I want to play more volleyball," complained Hinata as he sat in front of Yachi's desk after classes. "Can I just not do school?"

"Why did you want to tutor us now?" Kageyama asked Yachi. "Finals aren't that soon."

Tsukishima answered for her with arms crossed. "You two are already behind. If you don't study now, the problem will only compound in your second and third years. Then you'll never be able to catch up and will be kicked off the team."

Kageyama and Hinata sat straight up and nodded. Then they promptly shoved their heads in their books.

"Thanks for helping me Tsukishima," said Yachi. _"I guess Tsukishima could be nice to them if he wants to,"_ she thought.

"Hold on, Yachi," said Tsukishima. "I'll only help on one condition."

_"Or maybe not,"_ Yachi retracted her thought.

"You have to say, 'Tsukishima is the best volleyball player on the team,' first," he told Hinata and Kageyama with a sadistic smirk. Of course the two immediately rejected his help. There was no way those words would come out of their mouths. Tsukishima just shrugged, "Do you want Yachi to shoulder the burden of tutoring the two of you by herself?"

They both struggled to respond. They were already indebted to Yachi and they knew she would still try to help them by herself. The tension between the pair and Tsukishima caused Yachi to be flustered. She didn't know the best way to defuse the situation. "It's okay you two. You don't have to force yourselves," she attempted to ease the tension.

Hinata said it first. "Tsukishima is the best volleyball player on our team," he quickly spit out. He immediately cringed thereafter. Tsukishima's face was about to show a smug grin when Hinata added, "but only in a million years from now."

Tsukishima firmly grabbed the top of Hinata's head as he wailed. Yachi burst out into laughter before quickly stopping herself. "Sorry," she shyly tried to apologize. "I guess the more I'm around you guys, the funnier this is," she giggled. After they finally settled down, Yachi wondered if she should bring Yamaguchi next time to help her manage these boys.

Tsukishima and Yachi split the material they needed to cover. Yachi helped Hinata with English and Tsukishima helped Kageyama with math. "How can you still not even do basic algebra?" commented Tsukishima. This was going to be a lot more challenging than he thought. With memory work being Kageyama's only redeeming academic skill, teaching him math seemed impossible. He would have asked to switch with Yachi but it might be too hard for her too. "Let's do math another day and switch to literature," said Tsukishima, giving up.

During their study break, the four of them watched clips of professional volleyball players around the world. Hinata was completely star-stuck by spikes of the best middle blocker in the world. He was ace material with his powerful hits. But this made them see that both Hinata and Tsukishima's spikes weren't very powerful.

"Tsukishima! Let's be like him!" exclaimed Hinata with an excited grin.

"Yeah, right," said Tsukishima. "We're nowhere near his level. He's the best for a reason."

They wrapped up their study session when Hinata's stomach grumbled. As they packed their bags, Tsukishima told Yachi, "To be honest, I was also surprised that you planned a study session today. Did you finish your social studies paper already?"

Yachi stared back and blinked her eyes a few times. "It's not due until next Friday, right?" replied Yachi.

"Actually, it's due this Friday. Well, I'm assuming that our classes have the same social studies teacher. She'd probably give the same assignments to both of our classes."

Yachi's eyes shot wide open when she realized his assumption was correct and she started to panic. "What do I do~~?" she said as she wilted in her chair.

Tsukishima sighed and placed his backpack on Yachi's desk. He removed three library books from his bag. "Here, those are some of the resources that I found were helpful. Everything else in the library only had small snippets of useful information."

Yachi looked at the books in awe and said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I don't know what I'd do without you Tsukishima!"

"Just return them to the library when you're done. I've already made notes for the information that I needed."

As Tsukishima was about to leave, Yachi thanked him again. "Thanks for helping me tutor Hinata and Kageyama today. It helped a lot."

"Why did you even offer to help them in the first place?" wondered Tsukishima.

Yachi fidgeted in her spot before she shyly answered, "Well, there isn't much that I'm good at. So if there's anything I can help with, I try my best."

"There are plenty of things that you're good at," he said. He thought back to the fund-raising poster, the previous tutoring, the regular duties of a manager, and even helping him with the recent practice game.

After a beat or two of waiting, Yachi replied, "Wait, you're being serious? I thought that you were being sarcastic. Or that you'd even snicker at me and say something like, 'You're good at over-thinking things.'" When she saw that Tsukishima was slightly annoyed, she added, "Sorry! I just assumed because you're like that with the rest of the team."

"I'm only like that with annoying and noisy people," he replied.

"Oh right," she said with a nervous laugh, "That's true." As he left, he heard Yachi say shyly, "Have a good night, Tsukishima." He nodded in reply and left.

* * *

After her meeting with Kiyoko, Yachi went to the school library to return Tsukishima's books. She sighed, "I don't know if I can handle being a manager by myself."

Over at the other side of the library, she saw a familiar pair of Sony headphones. Tsukishima was sitting at one of the desks. She went up to him and awkwardly said hi. "What are you doing?"

Tsukishima pulled his earphones off. "Just working on an assignment." He tilted his head to peer over at the clipboard that Yachi was holding. "Is that a score sheet?"

"Yeah, Kiyoko-senpai taught me how to fill it out and I was going to practice by watching one of our past matches," she replied as she sat down beside him.

Tsukishima returned to his assignment while Yachi set up her laptop. It wasn't long before Yachi tapped his shoulder to ask a question. "Sorry, could you help me for a bit?" she asked. "I don't know what the serving order is supposed to be."

Tsukishima looked at the score sheet. He had never seen one before. "I have no idea how to read this," he said.

"I'm supposed to put the player numbers here," Yachi pointed to a column of the table. "For this match, Kageyama served first so I write #9 in this box. But who is supposed to serve after him?"

Tsukishima shuffled over to take a better look at her screen. He reached over to her side of the table to rewind to the part where the team showed their jersey numbers to the referee. "I served next," he replied. "Do you see this?" He pointed to the laptop screen. "That's our initial starting rotation. Then, we rotate clockwise. So if you imagine us rotating, I'd be next and then you go around in a circle from there."

"So whoever is in the front of the current server will serve after?" asked Yachi. Tsukishima nodded in reply. "Thanks Tsukishima!" she smiled. "I still have a lot to learn, don't I?" she sighed.

Tsukishima shrugged his shoulders. "I have no idea. I've never had to keep score or referee a game so I've never thought about how they've kept track of everything." He studied the score sheet again. "Why do you have to learn how to do this?"

"Kiyoko-senpai was actually doing this the whole time," replied Yachi. "She did it because former coach Ukai didn't trust the referees to keep track of everything correctly. She kept score during practice games too." Yachi sighed, "She had also wanted to learn how to record statistics for each game, like the number of blocks and spikes each player did. But when they had no coach, those didn't seem to matter anymore."

Tsukishima seemed to follow what she was getting at. "And you want to do it?" asked Tsukishima.

"Yeah," Yachi nodded with a smile. "I want to do what I can as a manager and support our team well."

Yachi continued to watch the game while Tsukishima returned to his assignment. The footage of the entire match was about an hour long, but because Yachi had to pause every now and then to ask Tsukishima a question, they were there for two.

Tsukishima got up to pack up his belongings and he held out a few sheets of paper to Yachi. "Here," he said and Yachi took the papers. One had a list of all the Karasuno's players with their jersey numbers. A couple of other sheets showed where each player stood for a service receive for each of the six possible rotations.

"If you want to be able to record our statistics, you'll need to be able to understand everything that's happening. Sometimes other teams do their positioning differently so I drew these out for you to show what our team does. There's more to that but that was all I could do just now."

Suddenly, Tsukishima felt Yachi hug his waist. "Thank you so much Tsukishima! You're the best!" Yachi said excitedly. It meant a lot to her that Tsukishima took the time to support her with her newly-found duties. She looked at the papers with stars in her eyes. But when she looked back at Tsukishima, she saw how embarrassed he was. "Sorry!" she promptly apologized. "I just got so excited! And ummm... sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

"It's fine," sighed Tsukishima. But it was only after he left that his cheeks stopped being pink.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Since when have you been close to Yachi?" asked Yamaguchi.

"Close? We're not close," replied a confused Tsukishima.

Yamaguchi had thought back to their last practice. Yachi had sat at a desk on one side of the court and had looked like she had been writing quite a bit. Yamaguchi had been afraid she wouldn't have noticed a stray ball. Tsukishima later had gone to chat with her during their water break. She had been consolidating the volleyball calendar for the next school year. She had the dates for both the summer and spring Inter High tournaments and she also had the planned dates for some training camp and potential practice matches. For fun, she had also wondered if she should have put the birthdays of each of the players.

Considering this, Yamaguchi was skeptical about Tsukishima's reply. But if they weren't close, they were at least comfortable with each other. He saw how the two of them would interact as they continued tutoring Kageyama and Hinata together. Other days, Tsukishima had stayed at school with Yachi even when Hinata and Kageyama weren't there.

The two of them walked down the hall and passed class 1-5. Tsukishima took a glance and saw that Yachi was mindlessly drawing in her notebook. A moment later, she freaked out when she realized she drew all over her notes. Tsukishima chuckled at her.

"What's so funny?" Yamaguchi asked.

"Nothing," Tsukishima replied with a straight face, but Yamaguchi peaked in the classroom to see Yachi pulling at her hair.

_"Does he have a crush on her?"_ wondered Yamaguchi. It was fine if it was true. He'd never seen Tsukishima interested someone before. He smirked at the possibility of seeing Tsukishima flustered and embarrassed if he did like her. "Are you interested in someone in that class?" nudged Yamaguchi.

"No," Tsukishima replied, looking at Yamaguchi as if something was growing from his head. "Finding someone funny doesn't mean I'm interested in them." This reply made Yamaguchi doubt his initial thought and wondered if he was just reading into things.

* * *

"Yachi-san, do you know where our water bottles are?" Tsukishima asked her as he stepped off the court. The team had been practising their spikes with Kageyama. The first and second years lined up in rows according to their position to wait for their turn.

"Oh, I placed them over here," she pointed next to her. She bent down to get his bottle and stood up to give it to him. As she handed his water bottle to him, she accidentally squirted Tsukishima's face. They both froze. Water dripped off his glasses. "Oh my goodness! I'm so sorry Tsukishima!" she freaked out. "I'm so clumsy! I'm not cut out for this!" She continued to ramble with her arms waving frantically. "Maybe I shouldn't be a manager! I can't even do this properly. Am I going to be fired? Did Coach Ukai see? Is this how I'm going to die? What do I-?"

Tsukishima sprayed water on her face which caused Yachi to go speechless. "Oh, that worked," stated Tsukishima with a smirk. "You stopped."

Hinata, who saw the whole exchange, was just about to step in to defend Yachi. But before he could, Yachi grabbed another water bottle to squirt at Tsukishima. Tsukishima smirked at her and retaliated, and in turn, Yachi made sure to get water all over his face. Water sprayed everywhere, and the two only stopped when their respective water bottles were emptied.

Tsukishima took a look at Yachi and saw how wet her face and hair were. Her sweater was equally as wet. He accidentally let out a snort that he had tried to hold back. But this slip was too much for Yachi and they both erupted in laughter at the sight of their childishness.

"Okay you kids," Ennoshita said as he placed his hands on their shoulders. The two straightened up when they realized everyone saw all of that. "You should probably clean this up now."

Tsukishima and Yachi looked at each other with embarrassed faces. They responded, "Yes," to the new captain and rushed off to grab some towels.

Tsukishima sighed since during the rest of the practice, he couldn't concentrate. He didn't understand why he made a fool of himself. He knew better than to join a water fight, let alone in the gym.

"Yachi-san~~," said Hinata with Kageyama standing next to him. "Let's go to the Sakanoshita store after. I'll treat you for some meat buns for tutoring us." Hinata wore a large smile.

"Ha? Meat buns? Why meat buns?" asked Kageyama.

"Doesn't everyone like meat buns?" answered Hinata. Tsukishima glanced over at Yachi and noticed a small wrapped snack on the side on her backpack. It looked like some fugashi.

"I'm glad Hinata gets along with shy people like Yachi easily," Ennoshita commented to Tanaka. "It'll be helpful when the new players join in April."

Yachi replied back to Hinata, "Sure! I'd like a meat bun." She started to put her backpack on. "Oh, but if it's for the tutoring, shouldn't Tsukishima and Yamaguchi get one too? They've been there almost every time I was." She looked over at Tsukishima as if she was asking him to join.

"Nah, I don't want any," said Tsukishima. He put on his headphones and walked away. Yamaguchi caught up to join him. While they walked in silence, Yamaguchi wondered what was going through Tsukishima's head.

Then, Yamaguchi remembered something. "Oh! I forgot to tell you! I think I saw Yachi put something in your bag. It looked like a card. I was going to ask her about it but it slipped my mind."

Tsukishima looked puzzled as to why she would do that. She could have given it to him directly. "I'll check it out later," he said.

* * *

After eating dinner, Tsukishima took out his gym clothes to put in the laundry. A card fell out onto his living room floor and he stared at it for a moment before he remembered that this was probably the card that Yamaguchi was referring to. On the envelope, his name was written with a little heart on the end. Confused, he opened it.

"I'm home," said his brother as he entered the front door. His eyes initially were directed to his shoes, but then he looked up at Tsukishima afterwards - just fast enough to see him quickly hide the card behind his back and see his flushed face.

"Well this is annoying," Tsukishima grumbled to himself.

"What's that? It's not every day I see my little brother get flustered," Akiteru approached him with a big grin. Tsukishima sighed as he placed his hand on his face. "Is it a love letter?" joked Akiteru. Tsukishima groaned again. "Wait, am I right? I was just kidding."

Not wanting his brother to keep probing at the topic, Tsukishima picked up his gym clothes and walked to his room. He closed his door and reviewed the contents of the letter again to make sure he had read it correctly.

"Dear Tsukishima. I really like you - enough that I keep peeking into your classroom just to see you. You don't have to reply or anything but I just wanted to let you know."

He blushed at the thought of Yachi liking him, but then, he placed his palm on his face to cover a grin that he was holding back. He felt stupid for feeling happy about it. He groaned and rationalized that anyone would be happy if they found out someone liked them.

He looked at the card again and noticed that Yachi didn't sign it. He sighed and decided not to say anything for now until he figured out what to do with these troublesome feelings.


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the kudos, comments, and subscribes! I seriously get excited that people are liking a story that I dreamed up for fun. I've caught up on cross posting from FFN so you won't be getting almost daily updates anymore.

**Chapter 4**

During their lunch break, Yachi saw Tsukishima outside her classroom. She waved at him and started to walk to the water fountain but stopped when Tsukishima called out to her.

"Yachi-san," Tsukishima said, "I actually have something for you." He held out a few sheets of paper. "I have some more volleyball information for you."

Yachi gave him a gentle smile. She noticed lately that Tsukishima enjoyed teaching her about volleyball after school. It wasn't very obvious, but she did see that his eyes would light up like when he would play a volleyball match. She didn't understand why he enjoyed teaching her but guessed that he just liked volleyball a lot. "Thanks Tsukishima," she replied.

Tsukishima had a sudden thought about how cute Yachi's smile was, but turned away to stop looking at it because he could feel his cheeks warming up. Instead, he asked, "Could you come with me for a moment?" He gestured to her to follow him.

They walked around the side of the school to the vending machine. Tsukishima inserted a few coins in. "Which drink do you want?" he asked.

Yachi was shocked since it seemed like he had read her mind. She initially left the classroom to get a drink of water. "What a coincidence!" she giggled. "I was thirsty!"

After he paid for their drinks, the two sat at the bench together. After Tsukishima took a sip out of his drink, he sighed and held out Yumi's card for her to see, "Did you put this in my bag?"

"Yes," Yachi replied in a panic. Tsukishima thought she looked pretty nervous about the card.

He sighed again as he got frustrated at the difficulty of ignoring the feeling in his stomach. "Are you free after practice today?"

"Yes...?"

"Okay, wait for me after practice," he quickly said afterwards.

"Oh, okay. But why?" she gave him a confused look.

"I don't know. We can grab some food. Maybe watch a movie. I don't know what I'm really supposed to do," he said while trying to maintain his composure.

To his relief, the bell rang. He got up to leave before he added, "You know, you should make sure to write your name on the card. I only knew that it was from you because Yamaguchi told me."

"Oh, okay," Yachi replied. "I'll do that next time."

_"Next time?"_ Tsukishima thought to himself. As he left, he got annoyed at how often he had blushed.

* * *

_"Why did I say that?"_ thought Yachi as she waited for Tsukishima after practice. She kept pondering over her conversation with Tsukishima all afternoon even after ranting to Mei about it. Even with all that thinking, she still didn't know how to clear up the misunderstanding.

She thought back to when Yumi had given her the card. Yumi was shy around boys but had a bubbly personality otherwise. Yachi had initially thought that Tsukishima might get along with Yumi once they had gotten to know each other and that they could have been a cute couple, but now she didn't know what to do.

Yumi had approached her because she had noticed that Yachi would study with the volleyball boys and then had found out that she was the manager of their team. The day that Yumi gave her the card, Yachi had called out Tsukishima's name when she saw him, with the intention of giving him the card directly. But for some reason, she couldn't do it. So when Tsukishima responded to her call, she had told him that it was nothing.

When Yumi had later asked her about it, Yachi had told her that she had forgotten to give it to him and later decided to put it in Tsukishima's bag. She didn't think that by doing so that she would have be trapped in this misunderstanding.

Tsukishima came out after he packed his bag and switched back to his regular glasses. "So what did you want to do today?"

"Run away and hide under my bedsheets," she said, but quickly clasped her mouth when she realized she said that out loud.

Tsukishima snorted at her. "Did you want to do that?" he joked. "I could just walk you home if you'd like. I didn't really have anything planned." She wouldn't have minded that if she wasn't dying of embarrassment, not to mention that she still had to figure out how to clear up the misunderstanding.

The two had started to walk and they were both fairly quiet. Yachi felt the need to say something, but for Tsukishima, her company was enough. As they walked down the street, Yachi glanced into a stationary store and suddenly felt the urge to go in. She looked up at Tsukishima with sparkles in her eyes as if she was asking him permission to go inside. He prompted her to go ahead and they entered the store together.

Tsukishima saw her pick up a pencil set with a wide range of pencil grades. This one in particular had fourteen graphite pencils with a 6H pencil at the lightest shade and a 12B pencil at the darkest. She looked like she wanted to buy it but returned it to its place. Tsukishima picked it up and asked, "What is this?"

"Those are drawing pencils," she said. "I thought it would be nice for when I practice designing posters and other things." She shrugged, "I don't really need it though. I can always borrow some from my mom if I need to." He nodded and continued to walk her home.

* * *

"So how was your date?" Mei nudged Yachi during class.

"I guess it was nice," were the words that slipped out as she blushed. "Wait! Ugh... Why is this happening to me?"

"I'm guessing you weren't able to tell him?" she asked. Yachi shook her head and Mei responded by giving her an amused look. "Well, I guess you'll just have to keep dating your secret boyfriend," she grinned. Yachi let out a groan from her mouth. She told herself that she'd clear up everything with him later, but little did she know that things would get slightly more complicated.

One day after school, the first years decided to join their third year senpais who were studying in Coach Ukai's store. It was there that Hinata asked her the question that she didn't want to hear. "Yachi-san, who's your secret boyfriend?" Hinata asked her with a grin.

Yachi coughed in response. She had choked on her drink and had almost spat it out. Somehow, her conversation with Mei had turned into a rumour that had spread to Hinata's class.

"Who is it?" he continued to ask excitedly with stars in his eyes. "Is it someone on the team? Is it one of the senpais?"

"It's not any of us," Sugawara answered while laughing. "Asahi and Daichi wouldn't keep it a secret if they were dating someone."

The hairs on the back of Sawamura's neck stood up. "Actually...," he chuckled nervously.

Sugawara's jaw dropped, disbelieving what Sawamura's words were implying. "What?! You're dating Yachi-san?!" he exclaimed.

"No, not Yachi-san," he replied nervously. "But I started dating Yui last week."

"What?!" he shouted back. Sawamura's response didn't exactly calm him down. "Why didn't you tell me? I've been shipping you two for months! Do you know how long I've waited for you to finally get a clue?" The two continued to talk about this newly-found information while Hinata was still wondering whom Yachi could be dating.

"There's no point in thinking about it," Tsukishima told Hinata as he held Yachi's drink for her until she finished coughing. "If it's a secret, wouldn't they just deny it?" His straight-faced response prompted Yachi to cough some more. How could he have such a good poker face?

"But... But... I'm just so curious," pouted Hinata.

"Just leave her alone," said Kageyama. "It's none of our business anyway." He pushed Hinata's head back into his textbook. "Just keep studying."

"It's just a rumour," added Yamaguchi. "We don't know if it's true or not." He actually knew what was going on though. He had heard the rumour floating around in their classroom and had mentioned it to Tsukishima. Tsukishima had noticed that Yamaguchi had looked a little sad about it and had learned that Yamaguchi had thought that Yachi was cute. Tsukishima didn't know what to do after knowing how Yamaguchi felt. He had simply told to him, "Sorry."

Yamaguchi had been confused at first but then congratulated him when he had realized that Tsukishima had started dating Yachi. He had clarified that he was sad because it seemed that Tsukishima might have liked her, but now it had looked like he didn't have to worry about him.

Yamaguchi smirked and nudged Tsukishima to tease him a bit. He had noticed that Tsukishima had sat beside Yachi and also had held her drink during her coughing fit. Yamaguchi wanted to show him that he noticed those small caring details, knowing that he'd be embarrassed by them.

"Shut up," Tsukishima quietly snapped at Yamaguchi. "Just go back to studying."


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments and kudos!
> 
> This is the first decent longfic I've written and I'm realizing just how much work it is. I'm juggling new ideas in my outline, writing drafts for future chapters, and tweaking and proofreading completed chapters at the same time. Shout outs to all you authors out there. I have a new appreciation for you.

**Chapter 5**

"I'm sorry!" said Yachi after she asked Tsukishima to meet her outside the store. "I'm really sorry! Please don't hate me!" she cried.

Tsukishima was confused at her sudden change in behaviour. "What's this about?"

"I...," she tried to start but the words didn't come out of her mouth. She attempted to explain again, but she said it so fast that all of her words came out in a jumble.

"Yachi-san, you'll have to speak slower than that," Tsukishima stated. "I didn't catch anything."

Then she nervously mumbled something and Tsukishima indicated that he didn't hear that either. She had to tell him. With the rumours about her having a secret boyfriend going around the school, she knew she needed to clear the air before things got any worse. "I didn't write that card," she was finally able to say with a sigh.

Tsukishima was still confused, so she explained as calmly as she could. She closed her eyes and said, "A classmate asked me to give you the card. I put in it your bag and you thought that the card was from me. It wasn't me who confessed to you. It was another girl."

When Tsukishima didn't reply right away, she took a peek at him through one of her eyes. Looking at him, she couldn't get any indication of how he felt. She frowned and said, "I'm really sorry, Tsukishima."

"Why are you sorry?" he sighed when he finally replied. "I misunderstood."

"I should have told you sooner," she said. "I was worried about how you'd react-"

"It's fine," Tsukishima interrupted. "Let's just go back."

Yachi trailed behind him as they entered back into the store to rejoin studying with the others. But Tsukishima packed his belongings and left. Yachi's heart sank. She couldn't help but feel that she had just ruined something that couldn't be fixed.

At home, she felt even worse. When she opened her bag, she saw a set of drawing pencils and a pack of fugashi that weren't there before. They were tied together with a simple note that said, "To Yachi. From Tsukishima."

Yachi slumped on her couch and buried her head in her pillow. _"Tsukishima has been so nice to me lately and then I ruin it,"_ she thought. _"I should have never put the card in his bag. I should have just given it to him directly. No, I should have just told Yumi that I couldn't do it."_

Tsukishima didn't talk to Yachi the next day. Maybe he just had no reason to talk to her during practice. The day after he cancelled on helping Kagayama and Hinata with studying, saying he was too annoyed with them. Yachi couldn't tell if he was purposely avoiding her. She started to worry that he was angry with her.

_"Stop over-thinking! It's only been two days,"_ she mentally scolded herself. _"Nothing is wrong,"_ she tried to convince herself. _"He just didn't want to help them anymore."_

Yachi walked passed classroom 1-4 and looked inside the classroom. Tsukishima sat at his desk with his headphones on. She wanted to go inside and say hi, but her gut was telling her to back off, so she just sighed and left.

The day after, Yachi learned that the coach had forgotten to hand out the updated schedule. "I can give the handouts to the team," Yachi promptly volunteered. She went into the second year classrooms and then the other first year ones. _"Why did I volunteer for this?"_ she wondered to herself. _"The coach could have just given them out during next practice."_

When she realized that she had arrived at Tsukishima's classroom, she hesitated to walk inside, not knowing how this would go. She still didn't know how Tsukishima felt about the whole misunderstanding. _"He said it was fine,"_ she told herself. _"Just go and give the sheet to him."_

When she finally walked up to his desk, she said, "Uh... hi."

Tsukishima was surprised to see her there, but he simply replied, "Hi."

"Uh... Here's the updated practice schedule," she said awkwardly while giving him the paper.

"Okay. Thanks," was all he said and then he put this headphone back on. Yachi, unsure of how else to continue talking to him, just decided to walk away for now.

After a week had passed, Tsukishima still hadn't really talked to her. So she started to go and see him with whatever excuse she could think of. One day, she heard that a classmate had used a pencil from Tsukishima. "I'll give it back to him!" she said a little too eagerly.

Her classmate looked at her confused. "He wants it back?"

"I think so. He cares about his stuff," she blurted out. It was technically true, but she knew that he probably didn't care for that pencil anymore. If he did, he wouldn't have lent it out.

She took the pencil and went straight for his class. She hesitated at the door, but she forced herself to move her feet into the classroom. Then, she quickly walked to Tsukishima's desk. "Here's your pencil," she said.

Tsukishima raised his eyebrows at her and he looked back down to his desk. "Thanks," he said while not making eye contact. It seemed like he wasn't sure what else to say.

"Do you like cookies?" Yachi asked out of nowhere.

Tsukishima was taken aback and looked up at Yachi to see her nervous face. "Cookies are fine...," he said.

"I'll bring some tomorrow!" she blurted out. "I'll come back tomorrow!"

"Uh... Okay," he raised an eyebrow since he was still a little baffled at her statement.

* * *

_"What am I doing?"_ Tsukishima thought to himself and sighed. He wasn't purposely avoiding Yachi. He was frustrated at the disappointment he had when she had told him that the card wasn't from her. Every time he saw her, it reminded him of how stupid he was acting to her, but the sour feeling in his stomach wouldn't go away.

Yachi came at lunch with cookies the next day. She came the day after with 'extra' candy that she wanted to share with him. Then, it was a volleyball question. The day after she just wanted to say hi. Tsukishima could see that she was trying hard to make things normal again. Throughout all of this, Yamaguchi noticed that things were different between the two of them.

"Did something happen to you two?" asked Yamaguchi.

"No, nothing significant at least," he said. But in his mind, he added, _"Nothing that should be significant."_

"It looks like Yachi is trying to appease you for doing something wrong."

"Does it? She didn't anything wrong though."

"But you barely talk to her now," Yamaguchi replied.

"That just means there isn't much to talk about," Tsukishima casually said as an excuse.

But that didn't convince Yamaguchi. _"What's going on?"_ he wondered to himself. _"Aren't they dating?"_

* * *

Yachi rested her head on her desk. She didn't realize that she was frowning until Mei had spoken up.

"What's wrong, Yachi?" Mei asked with concern for the petit blond.

"Mei-chan... I think he hates me," she said absent-mindedly.

"Who? Tsukishima?" Mei snickered.

"How did you know?" Yachi said with a gasp.

"Considering that you've gone to his desk every school day for a week, I think it was a fair guess," she replied. "You've also been bringing other things like food and treats to him as if you were trying to get on his good side."

Yachi sighed, "Maybe he really does hate me. Even though I go see him, he doesn't really chat with me. I can't hold a conversation with him anymore."

Mei thought for a moment before she mentioned, "Maybe he was upset the card wasn't from you. Maybe he wanted to date you."

"What? No way!" Yachi replied in shock. "I can't picture Tsukishima being interested in anyone, let alone me."

"Well, if that's not why he's upset, then he probably just thinks you're annoying or something." When Mei saw that Yachi's eyes were tearing up, she retracted her statement. "Wait, no! Maybe he's just going through a rough time and doesn't want to talk to people in general." She tried to convince Yachi that she wasn't annoying, but she could see Yachi sinking deeper and deeper into despair with the possibility that Tsukishima didn't like her anymore.

Over the next few days, Yachi didn't visit Tsukishima in his classroom. On top of running out of ideas, she wondered if their friendship could even be mended. At least, she considered him a friend, but it didn't seem like that was the case anymore.

The school bell rang, but Yachi stayed a bit longer to finished up the math question she was working on. As she left her classroom, she looked up and saw Tsukishima in front of her, leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. She was happy to see him but wasn't quite sure if she was in a daze or not. She blinked a few more times before Tsukishima smirked back at her. After he awkwardly rubbed the back of his head, he said without making eye contact, "I can walk you home if you'd like."

Yachi's shock turned into a smile. All of her worries about Tsukishima hating her had suddenly floated away. "Okay," she shyly replied as she turned away to hide her smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: When I first created an outline for this story, I was going to drag on the misunderstanding like no tomorrow. Then I remembered that Yachi is the type of girl who quickly apologizes. I think the end result was better.
> 
> Also, check out my other stories. :)


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Tsukishima kept looking at his classroom door during lunchtime, wondering if Yachi would come again. She hadn't come for a few days but he still kept expecting that she would come to see him. Disappointment came every time lunch break ended and class resumed. He couldn't blame her for ending her visits. It's not like he made things easy for her when she came.

Remembering that he actually asked her on a date, he felt like he made a fool of himself. He only asked because he thought that she liked him and figured that he wouldn't mind trying to date her. Yachi didn't annoy him and he didn't mind being around her. But when she told him that it wasn't her that liked him but another girl, everything he did felt stupid.

He always thought that guys who pursued unrequited loves like Nishinoya and Tanaka were stupid. If the girl didn't like him back, why keep trying?

"So are you just going to give up?" asked Yamaguchi. Tsukishima only sighed in response. "Are you afraid you'll be disappointment again?"

Well, he didn't want to try only find out that everything was in vain in the end.

"Pft, don't tell me you're scared, Tsukki," snickered Yamaguchi.

"Ha?" Tsukishima glared back at him.

Yamaguchi flinched a bit and gave him a nervous smile. "You should at least start talking to Yachi," encouraged Yamaguchi. "I'm sure she's sad that you're giving her the cold shoulder."

Not knowing what else to do, Tsukishima decided to take his advice. So the next day, Tsukishima waited outside of Yachi's classroom. If he needed to do something about Yachi, he might as well face her at some point. He watched as most of her classmates walked out of the classroom. He started to wonder why she was taking so long. When Yachi did appear, it was obvious that she was surprised but happy to see him. When he saw her smile, he couldn't help but think that she was waiting for him to respond all this time. She didn't care that he hadn't really been talking to her. She just wanted to be around him again. Realizing this, he decided to try to make things normal again. "I could walk you home if you'd like."

"Okay," she replied with a shy smile.

The two walked side by side; Tsukishima went at his normal pace while Yachi skipped beside him with a grin. He guessed that it was a good thing that he chose to approach her after school. She was smiling again.

"Sorry about the whole misunderstanding, Tsukishima," she told him. "I shouldn't have put the card in your bag in the first place."

"No, that was fine," replied Tsukishima. "I don't care that the card wasn't from you."

Yachi smiled, probably thinking that he was forgiving her for the whole situation, but he meant something else. At that moment, he decided he didn't care that Yachi didn't like him.

* * *

Over the next week or so, the first years studied together. Yachi was happy that things between her and Tsukishima were going well again. She guessed that her effort to mend their friendship wasn't useless after all.

Yamaguchi seemed to be at ease now since he was worried about the two of them. But lately, Yachi noticed that Yamaguchi often nudged Tsukishima and left the seat beside her for him. She found it strange but she didn't think much of it.

As the three of them continued to help Hinata and Kageyama, the two were steadily improving with their studies. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi were surprised while Yachi was ecstatic, but of course they still had a lot of work to do. When Hinata got stuck on one math problem, he kept trying it repeatedly, writing and erasing his work for over thirty minutes on the same question.

"Ughhh! Why won't this work?" Hinata complained.

"Did you want me to take a look?" offered Yachi. She left Tsukishima's side to get up and sit beside Hinata to look at his paper.

Slightly annoyed, Tsukishima told Hinata with a sigh, "Just stop trying. You won't get it at this rate."

Hinata growled back at him, "What? You do think I can't do this?"

"Not right now at least. Yachi can't baby you during the exam," stated Tsukishima. He handed Hinata some papers. "Here. Just memorize this first and do the questions on it."

Hinata and Yachi examined the paper. Tsukishima had written out all the topics and formulas Hinata would need to know along with selected questions that corresponded to each topic. Yachi looked in awe as Hinata gleefully accepted the paper. "You're the best Tsukishima!" said Hinata. "Do you need anything? A drink? A meat bun? A chocolate bar?"

Yachi looked at the study sheet and felt her stomach drop. She knew that Tsukishima was actually pretty nice even if he didn't really like to show it. She wondered if he had always been the type of person who would help anyone who tried their best, which would explain why he took the time to teach her more about volleyball.

"I need you to shut up and to stop bothering us with questions," Tsukishima snapped back at Hinata.

Kageyama snickered, "With his personality, you should have asked him if he needed help getting a girlfriend."

Yamaguchi coughed to stifle a laugh and Tsukishima glared at him. Yachi felt the heat rising in her cheeks. She couldn't believe she first thought of herself when the word 'girlfriend' was mentioned. It had been about a month since the misunderstanding, but she still felt guilty about it, even though Tsukishima said that he didn't care.

Kageyama looked at the three of them confused. "What's with that reaction?" he asked. "I was obviously joking-"

"Why don't we go get some food?" interrupted Yamaguchi before Kageyama could question any further. "It's almost dinner time."

As they got ready to leave, Yachi sighed. She and Tsukishima finally started talking to each other, but Kageyama had made it awkward again.

"Was there anything in particular that you wanted to eat?" Tsukishima asked Yachi, trying to change the subject.

"Not really," Yachi shyly replied. "I kind of wished I just packed dinner. Then I could have eaten while studying without having to go out to buy something."

"Are you good at cooking, Yachi?" wondered Hinata.

"Uhh... I don't know," she nervously answered. "I do cook regularly at home though."

"Really?" exclaimed Hinata. "I want to try your cooking!"

"What?" panicked Yachi. "I'm really not that good!" She felt a bit self-conscious with the thought of others trying her food.

"Well, you might get the opportunity to try Yachi's cooking at the team training camp," mentioned Kageyama.

"Yeah, Kiyoko-senpai's cooking was really good," recalled Yamaguchi.

"What?" Yachi's eyes started to spin. She started to imagine that Kiyoko was the daughter of some master chef, and that she could serve five star quality food. Yachi began to mumble to herself, "Do I need to learn how to cook steak? Sushi? Couldn't they die from eating raw food though? What if I didn't prepare it well? What if they die from my cooking? Then their families will come after me and I'll die from starvation while on the run. What do I do?"

As the others talked excitedly about another potential training camp, Tsukishima told her, "Stop freaking out. You don't need to make anything complicated. They'll eat anything." She nodded in response after she took a deep breath to calm down. "Don't worry. I've tried your cooking. Your cookies taste good," he added.

Yachi blushed, "Thanks, Tsukishima."

* * *

After their exams were done and the school year ended, the four of them hung out with Yachi at the convenience store during their spring break. They were a little sad because the store felt empty without the third years there anymore. Yamaguchi tried to cheer them up by reminding them that their senpais had told them they would visit. Yachi also had Kiyoko's number so she could keep her informed on their practice matches and tournaments.

They decided to watch some online videos about volleyball and bothered their coach with some of the other things they wanted to try out. While they did that, Yachi worked on the new poster to advertise their club to the first years.

She drew some drafts but struggled with what kind of message she wanted to communicate. When she thought of an idea, she made the boys pose for a picture that she might be able to use. But when she went back to her sketch, it still felt like it wasn't good enough.

"What are you trying to do?" Tsukishima asked her while looking over her shoulder.

"I'm trying to go for a look that shows something between teamwork and champions," she answered. "But maybe I should just try something else."

When Yachi still couldn't get any inspiration, she decided to take a step back and try again later. The boys had started practising outside of the store. _"They sure love volleyball,"_ she thought to herself as she giggled.

She started to take pictures of them practising. It was only after a while that they noticed that they were being watched. She found out that Yamaguchi was camera shy and got flustered when he saw the camera pointed at him. Hinata was the opposite as he excitedly asked Yachi to take a picture of him doing various volleyball moves. Kageyama and Tsukishima didn't really care and just kept practising.

At the end of the day, Yachi reviewed the photos in hopes of pulling herself out of her artist's block. A lot of the photos were blurry. Some were funny with the boys bickering with each other. Yachi then stopped at another picture that made her heart skipped a beat. In the photo, Tsukishima had a sweet smile while looking at the camera. That was definitely something that she didn't see every day and it caught her off guard. It didn't occur to her that he was smiling at the person behind the camera.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

The new school year had started and Tsukishima walked to his assigned classroom, 2-5. He sighed knowing that Yamaguchi wouldn't be in his class and wasn't looking forward to meeting new people. But when he entered his classroom, he saw Yachi sitting at one of the desks. "Are you in this class, Yachi?" he asked as he approached her and took the seat beside her.

"Oh! You're here too?" she asked excitedly.

"Yeah, Yamaguchi is in the other class but I'm glad that you're here." Yachi blushed and nodded to show that she was glad too.

The classmate in front of them turned around to greet them. He asked for their names since he hadn't met them before. Tsukishima just ignored him while Yachi introduced herself with a smile. "I'm Yachi Hitoka."

"I'm Nakata Kenichi," he said. He took a longer look at Yachi's face and smiled at her. "You're kind of cute." Yachi got flustered and glanced at Tsukishima to see what his reaction might be. "Are you free after school?" the guy asked.

Irritated, Tsukishima thought, _"What kind of guy hits on a girl he just met?"_ He wasn't looking forward to sitting behind him for potentially the rest of the school year.

"I'm actually busy today," replied Yachi.

Tsukishima smirked at Nakata and turned to Yachi to say, "You'll wait for me after class right?" He told her loud enough for Nakata to hear. Then, he whispered something into Yachi's ear, making sure that the other guy was still watching.

Yachi nodded at Tsukishima with a shy smile. "Yeah, I'll wait."

Nakata got annoyed and glared at Tsukishima. Tsukishima just smirked back at him like he had won. He knew that after school Yachi was actually planning on putting up the posters that she had designed. She wanted them up as soon as possible so that there would be more time for the first years to see them. So Tsukishima had whispered to Yachi that he could help her with the posters, but Nakata didn't need to know that.

Later, as Tsukishima and Yachi walked the hallways with the posters in hand, they talked about how the team would feel fairly different without their senpais.

"We'll probably need another setter," noted Tsukishima. "Having Kageyama as the only setter has some risks. And it's hard to practice spikes with everyone waiting on one setter."

"That makes sense," agreed Yachi. "The current third years will probably fill in for Azumane-senpai and Sawamura-senpai."

"That'll probably happen for now, but Yamaguchi probably won't let them without trying to be a starting player too," he added. "But I wonder what jersey numbers we'll get this time."

Yachi froze in shock. She looked at Tsukishima as if she couldn't believe what he said was true. "You mean you're changing jersey numbers?" Yachi's hands shook in disbelief.

"Yeah, why?" he asked.

"I just got used to all your numbers from when I was recording the team's stats from your matches! Do you mean I have to relearn them again?" wailed Yachi.

As Yachi freaked out, Tsukishima let out a chuckle. "Nishinoya will probably have the same jersey number though so you won't have to worry about that."

"Why is that?" Yachi thought out loud. "Oh, is that the only jersey that's a different colour?"

Tsukishima shrugged and said, "I thought you'd know better because you handle our jerseys."

Yachi smiled, "I guess if we get a second libero, I'll have to check our storage."

* * *

About a week later, the team had their first official practice. Three first years had joined them. There was a short one with brown hair and the first thing he did was to examine his senpais. "Who is the ace on this team?" he confidently asked. Some of the team members snickered at his comment because it reminded them of the other short player who used to be obsessed with the ace title.

"I guess that would be Tanaka," Ennoshita pointed him out.

"I declare you to be my rival!" the first year had the audacity to say as he pointed at Tanaka.

"What? What?" Tanaka said while glaring at the haughty first year. "You wanna pick a fight with me?"

Hinata jumped excitedly and asked, "Did you want to be the ace?"

"What? No way!" the first year said. "I'm a libero."

The whole team tilted their head in confusion with what he had just told them while Nishinoya laughed his head off.

"A libero's main enemy in a game is the opponent's ace," the first year elaborated. "The better the ace is, the better I can become. That is what a true rival is."

Hinata was in awe at the first year's philosophy. "That's amazing!" he said.

"Well, I'm happy to have another libero join me," laughed Nishinoya.

The first year's jaw dropped. "You're a libero?" he asked Nishinoya. "Teach me everything you know senpai!" Nishinoya got flustered and downplayed his abilities, but he took him in as his new pupil. The new libero introduced himself as Tobikomi Toji.

"It seems like our team keeps getting some interesting characters," commented Ennoshita.

"You mean more loud mouths," Tsukishima corrected as Yamaguchi snickered.

Following their team's tradition, they setup a 3v3 match with the first years. Tsukishima was placed on the same team as Tobikomi. Tobikomi thought it was great that Tanaka was on the other team so that he could have the opportunity to show off his skills against the ace.

During the game, Tobikomi had already managed to tick off Tsukishima. "I can't get the ball with your stupid blocks in the way!" he complained. Apparently, he wasn't used to the players in front of him being able to reach for the block. His middle school team was short compared to other teams and couldn't block well, so he was used to getting the ball with nobody marking the attackers.

Annoyed, but also wanting to test him, Tsukishima purposely got his block timing wrong a few times to see how he would do. When Tobikomi was able to get the ball, he decided to make things a little harder for him. "Tanaka-senpai, I'm not going to block the ball for the next point."

Tanaka snickered, "I see that he's already pissed you off. Don't worry. I'll make sure to show my 'rival' just how good I am." So when the ball was set to Tanaka again, he spiked at such a sharp angle that the ball hit the attack line. "That set was great!" Tanaka complimented the first year setter, Mitsuichi Yuuta.

After repeatedly missing more of Tanaka's hits, the libero apologized to Tsukishima. "I'm sorry. I was too conceited," he said as he placed his palms together to ask for forgiveness. "High school volleyball is harder than I thought. So please teach me, senpai."

This threw off Tsukishima and he didn't know how to react. They continued the game but this time, Tsukishima went to block Tanaka's straight so that the spike would be directed at the first year libero. After a few of those, Tobikomi realized what he was doing. "Tsukishima-senpai, you're actually really cool," he grinned with a thumbs up.

Tsukishima smirked at him and decided that he was okay for now - until Yachi came into the gym. "Did I miss it?" asked Yachi. "Are you still playing?"

"Who is that?" the first year asked to no one in particular. Before anyone could answer, Tobikomi ran up to Yachi to chat with her. "Can I have your number?" he asked.

Yachi got flustered and a few syllables stuttered out of her mouth. Tsukishima walked up right between them while he held the volleyball in his palm. He glared down at the little first year and told him, "It's your serve." Tobikomi flinched and hastily took the ball to the service line.

From then on, Tsukishima made sure that the libero received as few balls as possible. He blocked the spikes almost every single time. Tobikomi got annoyed and complained, "What the heck? That's not what you were doing earlier!"

"I never said that I was going to do anything for you," the tall blocker replied with a sadistic smirk. "This will happen in a real match, idiot, so get used to it."

* * *

Yachi stared at the blank pages on her notebook, not knowing where to start. Takeda-sensei and Coach Ukai had planned another training camp for the team during Golden Week, which was coming up in a few weeks. It felt like much too soon for Yachi, who was overwhelmed with the amount of work she had to do.

This was the first training camp that she had to plan for. Not only was it the first, but she would have to do it without Kiyoko-senpai's help. One of the things she took for granted was her meal planning, which was now on Yachi's plate.

During one of the class breaks, Yachi searched for recipes that she could try to use. Using her phone, she browsed through photos of meals that looked fairly tasty. But when she checked the details of various recipes, they would either use all these spices that she had never heard of, or would have way too many steps which made them impractical to use in large quantities. She sighed, not knowing what to do.

"Why don't you check out the grocery store?" suggested Tsukishima. "They have premade spice mixes and packaged sauces there. You might have better luck browsing there than on your phone for recipes that are actually feasible."

Yachi looked at him with her mouth opened. "That's actually a really good idea, Tsukishima!"

He smirked back at her. "If you want, I can come with you and try to help."

"Really? You'd do that?" asked Yachi excitedly.

Tsukishima shrugged as if he had nothing else better to do. "I wouldn't mind."

So after school, the two of them walked to the grocery store. Yachi stood inside the store, unsure as to where to start. Tsukishima suggested that they could aimlessly walk through the various aisles. After all, they only came to help her get some inspiration and not to actually buy some food. But when Yachi still didn't move from the front of the store, Tsukishima said jokingly, "You know, you can just buy a weeks worth of frozen meat buns for them."

"What? No, I can't do that!" exclaimed Yachi. "You guys need to eat better than that! You're all athletes!"

Tsukishima smirked at her. "I was joking. You need to start somewhere though. Why not just build on meals that you already cook for yourself?"

Yachi thought for a moment and then suddenly had an idea. She went to the frozen section to check out some of the prepared foods. "They have tonkatsu here!" she smiled as she looked at the breaded pork cutlet. "But it's kind of pricey. I only have so much to use with the budget that Takeda-sensei gave me."

"You could just use tonkatsu for one meal and cook something cheaper for the rest," he suggested.

"Hmm... okay. Let me write this down," said Yachi. She took off her backpack and pulled out her notebook. After she clicked her pen, she started to write down the cost of the pack of tonkatsu.

"Are you seriously using my back as a desk?" asked Tsukishima with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh! Sorry!" Yachi quickly apologized and removed her notebook from his back. "I didn't even realize- Umm... I'll try to find something else to use."

"It's fine," sighed Tsukishima. "It's not like there's anything else you can use around here."

Yachi shyly nodded as she gently placed the notebook back on his back. It was large and firm, and she blushed as she suddenly became more aware of Tsukishima's presence.

When Yachi felt like she had enough ideas to get her started with meal planning, she checked out a few items that she wanted to buy. She decided to try to cook at least one new recipe and wanted to practice at home.

"I hope these ribs will taste okay," Yachi said anxiously. "I've never tried making some before."

"I'm sure it'll be fine. The other guys like meat so you can't really go wrong with it," said Tsukishima. "And if you're really worried, I could even taste test if you want."

Yachi shyly smiled at him. "Okay. If it turns out well, I can bring it for lunch one day."


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all of the kudos and comments! I really appreciate them. Just a heads up - I won't be able to spend as much time writing this story because of real life stuff. (I've been updating at least once a week for those who are new to the story.) I do have the next chapter drafted but it's not at a place where I'm happy with it yet.

**Chapter 8**

Akiteru drove Tsukishima to the school with his luggage along with some groceries for their Golden Week training camp. His younger brother had told him that Yachi had forgotten a few ingredients and that he offered to pick some up for her since Akiteru could drive him to school.

Yachi waited at the school for their bus along with some of the other members of the club. After they arrived, Yachi came up to Tsukishima and started chatting with him.

_"I guess Yachi really was Kei's friend,"_ Akiteru thought to himself. He had only guessed that they might be during the Shiratorizawa game, but he was still surprised that his younger brother did have friends other than Yamaguchi.

Akiteru then saw something strange; Tsukishima smiled after teasing Yachi about something. It wasn't a smirk, snicker or snarky grin, but a smile - a real smile. He pulled Tsukishima aside and told him, "Oy, you know you're smiling right now, right?"

"So?" he replied as if smiling was normal for him.

"..." That wasn't the response he had expected. "Never mind," Akiteru said as he sweat-dropped. As he watched Tsukishima continue to chat with Yachi, he smiled and thought to himself, _"Yachi is pretty amazing."_

* * *

The team got onto their bus with their belongings and made themselves comfortable. Hinata and Kageyama were excited to be able to play volleyball and forget about school. The first years were also eager to go because they had never gone to a sports camp before.

"I can't believe I get to go on a trip with Yachi-senpai," Tobikomi said with hearts in his eyes.

"You're pretty lucky," said Nishinoya. "We were so sad when we found out that Kiyoko-senpai wasn't sleeping over with us last year."

But the one girl on the bus didn't notice anything around her because she was not only stressed, but also a little nervous too.

"I hope I remembered everything. There was so much to keep track of," said Yachi. She reviewed the lists in her notebook to see if there was anything left to do. "Uwaaa~~ I'm totally going to mess up!" panicked Yachi.

"Wow," Hinata said while looking over her shoulder from the seat behind her. He took a peak at Yachi's notes. "You planned all the meals for our training camp?"

"Yeah," replied Yachi. "I have no idea how Kiyoko-senpai did this last year. She planned the meals, bought the ingredients, cooked the food, and cleaned up after each meal. And that was for about four days with three meals each! She had Takeda-sensei's help but it's still a lot." Hinata nodded in agreement as his respect for Kiyoko increased even more. There was a lot that a manager did to support a volleyball team.

"You'll be fine," reassured Tsukishima. "If anything goes wrong, you can get these guys to help," he said while pointing at Hinata and Kageyama.

"They're probably not the best candidate though," Yamaguchi stated with a laugh. "Their help wasn't so great last year. I'm sure Tsukishima wouldn't mind helping you out instead," Yamaguchi said, more to tease Tsukishima than to reassure Yachi. Tsukishima responded by glaring at him, which made Yamaguchi flinch and second guess how often he should tease him.

"Thanks guys," Yachi smiled shyly. "I want to try to do as much as I can though and to do my job well. Then you can concentrate on improving your volleyball skills."

When they got there and settled in, the coach took them to the gym for their first practice. After doing some drills and a practice game, Coach Ukai, Takeda-sensei and Yachi watched them as the team wrap up their first practice with serving.

"What wrong, Ukai-san?" asked Takeda-sensei after hearing a sigh from him.

"I don't know if I'll be able to help all the players as much as I want to," said Ukai. "I'm already struggling with getting the starting players to improve and to mesh well together. Daichi and Asahi were key players to our team as well as Sugawara."

"Yeah, the team does feel different without them now," stated Takeda.

"But I also don't want to leave out the other players as well. I remember how discouraging it was to not be a starter. But there's only so much I can do."

"Would it help to get another coach?" asked Takeda.

"It would be nice but you had enough trouble getting me as their coach. I don't know how feasible it is to get another one."

Yachi asked, "Is there anything I could do to help with practices?"

"Well, it already helps that you toss the ball to Kageyama during spiking practice, which I appreciate," said Ukai. "I think what I need for now is someone who could stand on the box and spike at the team to practice their defensive skills. Then the non-starters wouldn't have to just stand there and watch during that particular drill. They could practice at the same time in another gym. But I don't think you know how to spike though."

"Yeah, I don't think I can do that," said Yachi. She thought for a moment and suddenly remembered something. "You said that you just need someone to stand on the box and spike, right?"

* * *

The team sat together during dinner and they all complemented Yachi on the food she cooked. She tried to play down their praise and told them, "Curry chicken on rice is a simple meal. It wasn't that hard."

"But you did put a lot of effort in planning the meals," reminded Tsukishima.

"It's better than last year when Kiyoko-senpai wasn't feeling well," mentioned Kageyama. "Nishinoya-senpai and Tanaka-senpai forgot to turn on the rice cooker."

"Yeah, your food is really good," Yamaguchi added with a smile. "I got seconds."

"Oh... Thanks guys," Yachi said with a timid smile. She wasn't very used to receiving complements, so it actually felt a bit awkward but nice at the same time.

When they finished their food, Hinata was about to go back to the gym to practise some more, but their captain stopped him. "Hold on, Hinata," Ennoshita said while clasping the back of his shirt. "Someone needs to do the dishes."

When nobody volunteered, Tobikomi came up with a solution. "Here! I can do eeny, meeny, miny, mo!"

"Is he a little kid or something?" Tsukishima commented.

Tobikomi pointed at each member as he recited the rhyme. "... Meany...," he said as he pointed to Tsukishima (to which Hinata snickered) "... Miny...," he pointed to Yamaguchi and, "... Mo!" he went back to point at Tsukishima.

"What the heck?" Tsukishima raised an eyebrow. "You're supposed to go back around to Tanaka. You also didn't include yourself."

Tobikomi smugly shrugged, "That's how my friends did it. So I guess you're doing dishes."

Yachi giggled at Tsukishima's annoyance with the libero and then decided to help him out. "I can do the dishes with you Tsukishima. I was planning on doing them anyway."

"But you cooked," said Tsukishima. "Are you sure?" Yachi nodded in response.

"Wait, no!" exclaimed Tobikomi. "That didn't count! I was actually joking-"

"Come on! Let's go practice! I'll teach you everything I know!" Nishinoya said as he dragged his pupil away.

"Nooo~~~! Yachi-senpai!" he yelled out.

As the rest of the team left, Tsukishima and Yachi proceeded to collect all the dishes from the dining room. Some of the guys had put their dishes beside the kitchen sink while others had left them at the tables. Yachi went back to carry some more dishes from the cafeteria while Tsukishima soaked the pot and stacked the dishes in the kitchen. As Yachi returned to the kitchen, she watched Tsukishima for a bit, thinking that it was nice to be able to help him out like this.

She remembered when she was first introduced to the team as a manager. All of the members enthusiastically welcomed her to the team while Tsukishima just stood there indifferently. She giggled at the memory, knowing now that it was just his personality to do that. But if she was told that the two of them would become friends, she wouldn't have believed it.

"Are you going to bring the dishes over?" Tsukishima asked her.

When she realized she had been staring at him, she blushed from the embarrassment. "Y-yeah. I'm coming."

Tsukishima started to wash the dishes and casually began conversing with her. "The kitchen got pretty messy," Tsukishima smirked while looking around the room. "What the heck did you do in here?"

"I- I was in a rush, okay?" she snapped back but was still flustered. She started to pack up the leftovers but then stopped to wonder if she should. "I don't know when anyone would eat the leftovers. We already have more food to cook for tomorrow."

"Someone's bound to get hungry tonight," stated Tsukishima as he recalled their past meals as a team. "I have no idea how some of them can eat so much."

When Yachi finished handling the leftovers, she came to join Tsukishima at the sink. He soaped; she rinsed.

"I was glad that there's this large window here," Yachi said referring to the one in front of them. "It made the kitchen feel nicer while I was in here." The sun had set by now and it was dark outside. Yachi leaned over the sink to try to look at the sky. "Too bad I can't see the stars right now. The kitchen light is reflecting off the window."

Tsukishima smirked and asked, "Do you want me to turn off the lights then?"

Yachi froze but tried to stutter something out, "I- Uh- What?" She didn't understand why that question threw her off guard.

"I'm kidding," he teased. "How can we wash the dishes if the lights are off? We can go outside later to look at the stars."

"Okay," she nodded timidly. She had actually breathed a sigh of relief when he said he was joking.

Tsukishima washed a few more dishes and handed some to her. He glanced out the window and smirked. "Well, at least you get to see the moon."

"Of course we can see the moon," she commented with a small smile. "The moon is the closest so it's the brightest." She continued to rinse off the soap from the bowl he had handed to her. She waited for the next one, but she noticed that Tsukishima had stopped washing dishes and was staring at her.

"You're not talking about me right?"

"What?"

"You said Tsuki is the closest so it's the brightest."

"..." After she registered what he was trying to say, Yachi blushed and got flustered again. "N-no, that wasn't what I meant. I guess you are kind of close. We have gotten to know each other more lately, and I consider you to be a friend, and we are literally close because you are washing dishes beside me, but that's just a coincidence, but wait, it's not a coincidence because I volunteered to help, and-"

Yachi had been waving her arms while her words streamed out of her mouth. To stop her, Tsukishima grabbed her hands and told her, "You're rambling again, Yachi."

She felt his large hands covering hers, as if he was protecting her from hurting herself. She stared at their hands, and then it finally occurred to her what she was looking at.

"Eeeeeee!" she shrieked as she quickly swiped her hands away from Tsukishima's grasp.

"What's with that reaction?"

"Yes! Sorry!" she promptly replied.

"Yes?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. Yachi thought he must have been confused as to why she was acting like this. She was perplexed as well. Tsukishima sighed and looked like he was disappointment about something. He ended up changing the topic to help put her at ease. "So what's on the schedule after dinner?"

"What? Oh," Yachi managed to say. Her heart was still trying to return to its normal pace. "I think we just have free time right now. Let's finish up quickly so you can go practise with the other guys."

"Okay," he replied as they continued to wash the rest of the bowls and utensils.


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mei sets up Yachi on a date with Tsukishima.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I actually did some research about the Miyagi prefecture but no guarantees on the accuracy of the information here.

**Chapter 9**

"Mei-chan, are you free right now?" Yachi asked her after class.

"Yeah, why do you-?" Mei started to say, but she got cut off when Yachi pulled her arm and dragged her to the gym.

Mei's eyes grew wide as she saw the boys' team practising. Yachi had run up to Coach Ukai while Mei followed her with hesitation. "Mei can spike to the team," she said to Ukai.

"Wait, what?" said Mei as she panicked. "You wanted me to help with the boys' volleyball team?"

"Well, I won't be asking too much from you," said Ukai. "I told Yachi that it would be nice to have someone who could spike for defensive training. You'll just have to stand on the table and direct your spikes to the different players."

"Well...," Mei hesitated, still a bit unsure about the whole thing, "if that's all you need me to do..."

She looked over at Yachi who encouraged her with a nod. Mei sighed, "Sure. I can do it."

* * *

Mei was later welcomed by the team as a temporary assistant. She didn't recognize a lot of them. She really only remembered Tsukishima, but then the other guy with freckles started to look familiar. She laughed at herself the next day because Yamaguchi actually sat behind her in class.

"Yamaguchi, what kind of things does Tsukishima like?" she asked him.

Yamaguchi looked at her with a slight worry on his face. "What do you mean?"

"You know, like what are his hobbies, what's his favourite food, or where would be his ideal date?" she elaborated.

Yamaguchi started to panic and wasn't sure how to respond. But then he blurted out, "Tsukki isn't interested in you!"

Mei blinked for a minute or two, and then she just laughed. "I'm not interested in him! Sorry, I should have said it differently so that you wouldn't misunderstand."

"Oh," Yamaguchi nervously laughed. "Sorry, I guess I just got used to pretty girls asking me about Tsukki that I just assumed."

Mei blushed and the word 'pretty' kept repeating in her mind. But then she shook her head to snap herself out of her daze. When she remembered what she was getting at, she told him, "I want to set up Yachi on a date with Tsukishima."

She remembered how embarrassed Yachi was when she told her what had happened at the training camp. The silly girl had finally realized her feelings for Tsukishima. Mei knew it was very likely that he returned her feelings, so she wanted to give them a gentle push.

"Hopefully a date would encourage them to confess to each other," Mei continued to explain her plan to Yamaguchi.

"Wait!" Yamaguchi exclaimed. "Yachi likes him back?"

"Shh!" Mei responded, then said in a whisper, "Yeah, I'm trying to give them the perfect opportunity to confess."

"Don't they have plenty of opportunities though?" asked Yamaguchi confused. "They sit beside each other during class and see each other during practice."

"A date is different. It might prompt them to say something," she explained. "The atmosphere needs to be right."

"Wow. Are you a hopeless romantic or something?" wondering Yamaguchi.

"I guess you can say that," she thoughtfully replied. "But only with other people. I can't stand cheesy stuff like that. No way."

Yamaguchi just stared back at her and sweat-dropped.

* * *

Yamaguchi couldn't believe that Mei had actually followed through with her plans. The four of them met up at the train station and went to a museum in Sendai. When they arrived there, Mei gave their tickets to the admission officer.

"Uhh... So why are we at Sendai City Museum when I told you that Tsukki liked dinosaurs?" Yamaguchi whispered to Mei. "You know that this is a historical museum about our prefecture, right?"

"It's close enough?" she answered. "They have old stuff here. It's the same thing, right?"

Yamaguchi sweat-dropped and said, "Remind me not to trust you with anything besides volleyball."

After the four of them entered the museum, Mei suddenly said, "Oh look! What's that over there?" and dragged Yamaguchi away from the two blondes. When Mei felt like they had gotten far enough, she checked around the corner to see if they had lost them.

"I think they know what's up," said Yamaguchi. He especially knew that Tsukishima probably noticed right away.

"Nah, Yachi knows I'm like this when I get excited. She'll think it's normal."

"Umm... But wouldn't you have dragged Yachi along instead of me?"

Mei flinched in shock, knowing that Yamaguchi was right. In denial, she brushed off what he just told her as if he never mentioned it.

After looking around the exhibit that they ran into, she said, "Well, I should probably tell Yachi that I'm not feeling well and decided to go home. Maybe I'll tell her I just got my period or something."

Yamaguchi couldn't believe she just said that out loud to him. It seemed like Mei was the type who didn't have much of a filter. After Mei chatted with Yachi on the phone and hung up, she told him that they should probably leave before they found out she was lying.

"Umm... why don't we stay?" Yamaguchi suggested. "We're already here anyway and the tickets weren't exactly cheap. We might as well stay?"

"I don't want Yachi to find out I set this up though," she reasoned. "She'll know if she sees me."

Yamaguchi thought for a moment and then opened up his backpack to rummage through it. He found a couple of baseball caps and some masks. "Maybe you can wear these and pretend you have a cold or allergies? I can wear it too." Mei stared back at him like he was crazy. "Never mind. You don't have to wear them. We could just stay in this exhibit or in the auditorium until they leave. Maybe if we stay in one place, it'll be less likely to bump into them."

Mei was hesitant at first but then decided to take the mask and the cap. "Okay," she smiled as she put them on.

The two of them started browsing through the special exhibit. A bit later, Yamaguchi felt his phone vibrate. He had gotten a reply from Tsukishima.

_Me: We're hiding in the Ancient Egypt exhibit so don't come here._

_Tsukki: K._

* * *

Yachi watched as Mei ran off with Yamaguchi and stared after their dust trails in disbelief. She couldn't believe that Mei just left her alone with Tsukishima. She had gotten a bit more nervous around him lately especially when she was alone with him. Ever since she realized her feelings, she had needed to put more effort into acting normal around him.

"Have they always been close?" Tsukishima asked her.

"I don't know," she answered. "I think Mei has been helping him with volleyball though."

Yachi took a look at Tsukishima and thought that he seemed to be acting like he usually does. She guessed that he probably wasn't nervous around her like she was with him.

"Is that a dinosaur in your hair?" asked Tsukishima. He looked a little closer at her side ponytail.

Yachi got flustered at how close he was to her face. With a blush, she replied, "Yeah, Mei gave it to me recently. I thought it looked cute so I wore it today."

Noting what she said, it seemed like he realized something and then sighed. "Well, shall we go?" he said.

The two of them started to proceed through the museum. Some of the information signs indicated the times of the tours that were occurring that day. Yachi commented on how well the signs were designed and wondered who created them. Tsukishima told her that he wasn't surprised that the signs and pamphlets caught her eye.

They decided to check out the next tour and waited for it to start. As they hung out in the lobby, they saw some people taking pictures with a face cutout board. On the board was Date Masamune, the feudal lord who founded Sendai. His armour was one of the major artifacts that were held at the museum so it wasn't surprising that they had a cutout board of him. The black samurai armour he wore looked kind of like a Darth Vader costume.

"Tsukishima come! I can take a picture of you as Date Masamune!" said Yachi excitedly. Tsukishima flat out denied her offer, but she continued to insist. "But I brought my camera and wanted to take pictures of our memories here."

Tsukishima sighed but then reluctantly agreed. He stood behind the cutout board and crouched down a bit to place his face in the hole. Yachi giggled at him because his glasses and blond hair didn't match with the era. "Just take the picture already," he told her.

After she did, a young mom and dad were waiting for their kids to have their turn. The mom asked them, "Did you want me to take a picture of you two at the other cutout?" She was referring to the one with Date Masamune with his wife.

"Uhh...," Tsukishima started to reply. But before he knew it, Yachi had already given her the camera and was standing behind the board.

"Come on Tsukishima!" she called out to him with a grin. He just smirked back at her before he joined her behind the board.

During the tour, they learned more about the Date clan and how Date Masamune turned Sendai from a small fishing town to a prosperous city. Tsukishima seemed to remember some of the content from their social studies classes but they learned more of the details here. Yachi started to take an interest in Date Masamune's eldest daughter, Irohahime, and her story.

Irohahime was considered to be a beautiful and intelligent woman. Her younger brother even went to her for advice even though he was the next heir of the clan. She was placed into a political marriage with the sixth son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was effectively the ruler of Japan at that time. But when her husband was exiled, she never remarried even when her parents encouraged her to. Some sources say she was a Christian which would explain why she didn't want to marry another man since Christian doctrine discouraged divorce. It would have be interesting if that was the case because her father-in-law had actually banned Christianity and persecuted the Christians.

"I think that she didn't marry again not only because she had made a vow before God, but also because she had actually fell in love with her husband," speculated the tour guide. "Imagine being in an arranged marriage with a man only to fall in love with him in the end." The tour guide squealed at the thought. "She must have been so heart-broken at her young age when her husband was sent to exile. And she stayed loyal to him even though her parents tried to find other suitors for her!"

"I think this tour guide is more of a historical fiction fangirl than a legitimate historian," Tsukishima commented to Yachi.

But when he turned to look at her, he flinched at seeing tears streaming from her eyes. "That was so romantic," said Yachi with a sniff. But to her surprise, the tour guide went on to a different topic as she led the group out of the room. "Wait! That's it? Irohahime became my favourite historical figure within five minutes! That can't be it!" cried out Yachi.

Tsukishima smirked at her reaction. "Well, maybe one day someone at the museum will be able to find out more about her."

Yachi smiled at his reassurance. "Thanks Tsukishima. I'll look forward to that."

When the tour ended, the two of them got hungry and decided to grab some lunch. Yachi giggled at Tsukishima's drink of choice; he got a carton of strawberry milk.

"What?" he said with a shrug. "It tastes good." Others had compared his taste to a kid's but he didn't care.

"It's cute," said Yachi. When Tsukishima raised an eyebrow at her, she realized what she said and started to get flustered. "I meant that your affinity for strawberries is cute. I didn't mean that you're cute, not that, uhh..." She shyly looked up at him and when his eyes met hers, she added, "I think I'll just stop talking now."

She could feel the warmth of her embarrassment. Tsukishima was staring at her with what seemed to be a curious look. After it seemed like he figured out something, he said with a smirk, "Don't worry. I think you're cute too."

Yachi felt like the temperature in her body was turned to maximum heat and she couldn't think straight. She had accidentally pushed her chopsticks off the table when she panicked. She went to pick them up but then she hit her head on the table which almost made her drink spill. After checking if she was okay, Tsukishima casually told her, "I meant that you're short. Cute can be another word for short."

Yachi laughed nervously, thinking about how she made a fool of herself. She figured that he had noticed how much that comment affected her so he retracted what he had said. "I guess I definitely look short compared to you," she replied with a timid smile.


	11. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yumi approaches Yachi and Tsukishima in their classroom. The Karasuno team has an eventful practice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was able to squeeze in another chapter this week. :) Also, I actually posted another version of the museum date with an extra scene as another story. You can check that out too if you'd like.

**Chapter 10**

The next day at school, Yachi was a little nervous to enter the classroom. She couldn't believe that she had spent almost the whole day with Tsukishima. Their trip to the museum was nice. Although Yamaguchi and Mei had left, she had enjoyed her time with him. It all felt a bit surreal now that she was back in school.

"Oh, you're here," noted Tsukishima as Yachi took her seat beside him.

"Mmhmm," she replied. She could feel her cheeks getting warmer and turned away from him to hide her face. She felt so self-conscious around him now and couldn't remember how she was able to talk to him before.

Suddenly, Yumi opened the door of their classroom. When Yachi made eye contact with her, Yumi waved at Yachi with a big grin and started to approach her and Tsukishima. _"Oh my goodness! Why is she here? Is she here for Tsukishima? Is she going to tell him the card was from her? What do I do? What do I say? I completely forgot about her!"_

Noticing that Yachi was panicking, Tsukishima asked her, "Are you overthinking about something again?"

"Yes!" she blurted out. Tsukishima chuckled at her knowing that she didn't mean to respond like that.

"Hi Yachi!" Yumi said with a smile. "Could you do a favour for me?" Yachi cautiously gave her a nod. "Great! Could you give this card to Nishinoya-senpai? He's on the volleyball team right?"

Yachi's eyes grew wide as she saw that the envelope had Nishinoya's name on it with a little heart. She panicked as she blurted out saying, "I don't want Nishinoya to think I like him!"

Tsukishima snorted as he tried to contain his laughter. Yachi realized what she had said and hid her embarrassed face in her hands.

"I don't get it," said Yumi. "Why is this guy laughing at you?"

As Tsukishima continued to chuckle beside her, Yachi turned to Yumi and stared at her like she grew a horn on her head. She couldn't believe that Yumi didn't remember who Tsukishima was nor her confession to him.

"Anyway, Nishinoya-senpai is so cool," she squealed. "Do you know what he did for me? He caught my camera for me! You know those expensive ones? Well, he actually dove to catch it for me. So of course I fell for him right there!"

As Yachi continued to stare at her, she could almost see floating hearts streaming from Yumi's face.

"It's like other guys don't exist to me anymore," Yumi continued as she squealed. "He's the only guy that I can see." After she finished rambling, Yumi's friend called for her and she exited the classroom, leaving the card at Yachi's desk.

"What just happened?" asked Yachi to nobody in particular, as she blinked a couple of times.

Tsukishima gave her a nudge as he snickered, "I guess you should leave that card in his bag during our next practice." Yachi turned red as he held his stomach and laughed. She looked at the card in her hands and groaned. Tsukishima snickered, "So I'm guessing she was my former secret admirer?"

"Ugh," she said as she slumped in her chair. "Don't remind me about that. I'm glad you're taking this so well."

"I told you that I didn't care that it wasn't from you so stop worrying about it."

"Alright," Yachi sighed. "What am I supposed to do about this one now?" she said as she held up the card in front of her.

"I can give it back to her if you'd like," suggested Tsukishima with a smirk.

* * *

Tsukishima walked into class 2-4 and started to look for Yumi. He saw Yamaguchi chatting with Mei and nodded at him to say hi. When he found Yumi in the classroom, he approached her, and to get her attention, he said, "Hey."

As he threw the card on the desk, Yumi looked up at him confused. "What's this?" she asked.

"You know, you shouldn't assume that Yachi will always do things for you," he told her. "You should give the card to Nishinoya-senpai yourself."

Yumi looked back at him stunned and a little embarrassed. "Oh, okay."

As Tsukishima was going to leave, he added with a smirk, "Thanks for giving me your other confession card though. But it seems to me like you complete forgot about that."

When he was gone, Mei told Yumi, "You know that was Tsukishima right?"

"Who?" she asked.

"The guy you confessed to via card a few months ago?"

Yumi stopped functioning. Yamaguchi laughed hysterically, and Mei found the scene hilarious.

* * *

At the next practice, coach Ukai told the team to setup on one side of the net to practise receiving serves. The coach wanted to see how Tobikomi would do against Kageyama's serves. So they had the usual starters but with the first year setter and libero. The front row had Kinoshita, Hinata and Ennoshita and the back row had Mitsuichi, Tobikomi and Tanaka. Tsukishima stood at the sidelines with Yachi, Mei, and the rest of the team members.

Tobikomi was able to get Kageyama's serve the first time, but the ball went back over the net instead of going to the setter. "Kageyama has a pretty good serve," he smirked. "But it's nothing I can't handle." Kageyama served the ball to him again, but this time he moved back slightly as he received the ball to absorb its power and was able to direct it to the setter's position. He cheered and said, "That felt so satisfying to receive that."

"I wonder how he'd react to Yamaguchi's serve," Tsukishima commented to Yachi.

"Why do you say that?" asked Yachi.

"This kid is probably like Nishinoya and likes getting powerful serves and spikes because it looks cool. But with a float serve..." Tsukshima then wore a sadistic smile on his face.

Yachi giggled at how Tsukishima was reacting. She almost thought it was cute. "I guess you really don't like that libero. Why are you so mean to him?"

Tsukishima just shrugged and said, "He's just the most annoying."

Mei snickered as she sarcastically told him, "Oh, I wonder why." Tsukishima just ignored her comment.

When it was Yamaguchi's turn to serve, Kageyama went back to the other side of the net to switch with the first year setter. When a float serve was sent over the net, Tobikomi failed to receive it. "What the heck was that serve? That wasn't powerful at all and it kept moving."

Tsukishima snickered at him from the sidelines and said, "So a libero can't even get an easy serve like that?"

"Shut up."

Yachi just sweat-dropped at Tsukishima riling up the poor first year. She knew that it actually wasn't an easy serve to receive and that Tsukishima was just provoking him. She figured that she would have to get used to Tsukishima's personality since she would probably be seeing this a lot more of this from now on.

When Yamaguchi served two more float serves, Tobikomi got frustrated that he missed both. "What the heck is going on?"

Tanaka laughed at the first year libero and explained, "That's Yamaguchi's specialty. A float serve is a serve with no spin so it's more vulnerable to the air flow in the gym. It makes the trajectory unpredictable."

Tobikomi was amazed. "Wow..." He then pointed at Yamaguchi. "I declare you as my rival!" Tanaka laughed at his tendency to pick out rivals while Hinata amazed at his boldness.

As they started to wrap up, Tobikomi asked the coach for permission to receive more of Yamaguchi's serves. After multiple serves, Yamaguchi told Tobikomi that he was tired of practising them, even though the first year was on his knees, begging for more.

Yachi came around to pick up some of the volleyballs and Tobikomi approached her. "Did you want to try serving to me, Yachi-senpai?"

"Oh- Uh... I don't know about that," she said shyly as she rubbed the back of her neck.

"Go ahead Yachi. You can do it!" Hinata gave her a thumbs up.

"It wouldn't hurt to try," added Kageyama.

"Oh. Umm... Okay." She took a volleyball as Tobikomi ran to the opposite side of the net. She swung her arm to hit the ball, but the next thing she knew was that the volleyball had landed on Hinata's face.

Tsukishima smirked, "It wouldn't hurt to try?" referring to Kageyama's comment.

"Hinata, you idiot! You should have been on the other side of the net!" exclaimed Kageyama.

"What? Why?"

"Because you should have known that her serves always hit you in the head, you idiot. Then at least it would have gotten over the net!"

"What? Why are you blaming-?" Hinata paused for a moment and tried to think about what he said. "That actually makes sense."

 _"That doesn't make any sense at all,"_ Tanaka, Nishinoya and Ennoshita sweat-dropped.

Tsukishima came up beside Yachi with another volleyball and instructed her on how to serve the ball. "Here, hold the ball in your left hand." He pointed to a spot on the volleyball and said, "You need to hit the ball around here. If you hit the ball from the bottom, it'll go up. If you hit it from behind, it'll go forward. So you need to hit it in between the bottom and back of the ball at a roughly 45 degree angle."

"Why is he talking about math during volleyball?" asked Hinata.

"That was math?" said Kageyama.

Yachi tried to follow Tsukishima's instructions, but the ball didn't reach the net because she didn't hit it hard enough. She swung her arm a bit faster the second time and much to her surprise, the ball went over the net. "I did it!" she shouted with joy. She was so happy that she wrapped her arms around Tsukishima.

"Gah! Why is she hugging him?!" complained Tobikomi with a pointed finger at Tsukishima. This made Yachi realize what she did and she apologized to Tsukishima out of embarrassment.

"It's fine," Tsukishima said with a straight face.

Tanaka snickered at him and said, "You probably did that on purpose to get a hug from her."

"I'm not that calculating," Tsukishima rolled his eyes at him.

Nishinoya joined in to tease Tsukishima as well, "I bet he likes Yachi or something."

"I'm surprised you can tell."

"See," said Tanaka. "Look at this guy trying to deny- Wait, what?"

The whole team blinked for a moment before they processed what Tsukishima had said.

"You like Yachi?!" exclaimed Tanaka.

"What's going on?! Is the world coming to an end?!" panicked Hinata.

"So this idiot actually has feelings?!" commented Kageyama.

"What did you do to him, Yachi?!" asked Nishinoya. "Did aliens abduct him and replace him with a clone?!"

"Shut up," said Tsukishima. "You guys are so loud and annoying."

"I set you to up on a date and that's how you decide to confess?!" Mei yelled at Tsukishima out of nowhere. He commented that he didn't expect Mei to join in too.

While Yachi was processing what had just happened, Tobikomi told Tsukishima, "I declare you to be my rival!"

Tsukishima got even more annoyed, saying, "I forgot about the other loud mouth guy. Everyone here is so noisy."

Yamaguchi laughed and said to Tobikomi, "I thought that Tanaka and I were your rivals."

Tobikomi shook his head. "No, no. He's my rival when it comes to Yachi-senpai's love."

The first year setter, Mitsuichi, said, "I can't imagine Tsukishima fighting for love." For some reason, he started to picture the tall and lanky Tsukishima fighting the short Tobikomi in a jousting match, fighting for Princess Yachi's affections. He then shuddered when he tried to imagine Tsukishima valiantly declaring his love for Yachi. Kageyama fixed the mental image by saying that Tsukishima would just flat out refuse a jousting match, saying that it was stupid.

"Oyyyy!" exclaimed the coach as he popped his head into the gym. "Stop messing around and hurry up! I need to be somewhere at 6!"

* * *

Yachi couldn't believe what had just happened. Ever since Tsukishima had admitted to liking her, it felt like her eyes were spinning and she shouldn't think straight. She tried to analyze what he had said. "Maybe he didn't mean it," she mumbled to herself. "Maybe everyone's misunderstanding something. But he would have clarified it right?" She was so confused.

"Were you waiting long?" asked Tsukishima as he came up to her.

Yachi realized that she was subconsciously waiting for him out of habit since he usually offered to walk her home. She looked at him and continued to wonder about how he felt about her. She finally decided that she didn't want to misunderstand so she decided to ask him for clarification. "Tsukishima, do you like me?" she asked very straightforwardly.

"Yes," he simply replied.

"But, but, but how?" she asked.

"What do you mean 'How?' you idiot?" he replied as he lightly tapped her head.

She placed her hands on her head where Tsukishima touched. "But... since when?"

"I don't know. It was kind of gradual. I know I probably liked you by the time you 'confessed' to me the first time."

Yachi's eyes opened wide. "Really?" She couldn't believe he liked her for that long. That happened a few months ago.

"Yeah, that's why I was acting like an idiot after you told me the card wasn't from you," he shyly said as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Oh, sorry about-"

"Yachi," he cut her off and then smiled. "Stop apologizing for that. You don't have to apologize for not liking me then."

"But I-"

"Looks like your rival is chatting with Yachi," Tanaka teased a grouchy Tobikomi after the rest of the team came out.

"Does this mean you two are dating?" asked an excited Hinata.

"Just leave them alone, idiot," said Kageyama.

"I guess they would be kind of cute together if they started dating," commented Ennoshita. "That height difference though..."

Nishinoya jumped onto Tsukishima and said, "Great job, Tsukishima. Now there's nothing else that I need to teach you about love."

"You didn't teach me anything," Tsukishima plainly replied as he pushed him off.

"Did you get a card from anyone Nishinoya-senpai?" snickered Yamaguchi.

"Card? What card?"

"Let's just go," Tsukishima said to Yachi as he gently pushed her forward.

Yachi giggled as she watched the volleyball team continue to banter while they left the school. She loved being around all of them but there was one special one on the team. She decided to let him know another time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't you just love the Karasuno team? :D


	12. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yachi responds to Tsukishima's confession and they go on a date - mixed in with the Karasuno team of course.

Yachi sat at her bedroom desk, struggling with how to reply to Tsukishima's confession. She wanted it to be special, so she had started to brainstorm ways she could confess to him, but none of her ideas were very good. Tsukishima probably wouldn't really care how she replied to him anyway, so she wasn't even sure if it was worth the effort. She thought that maybe she should simply just tell him that she liked him back.

Mei interrupted her thoughts by calling her on her phone to video chat. She immediately started to talk about what had happened that day with Tsukishima's unexpected confession. Mei still couldn't believe that he just admitted his feelings like that.

"Yeah, I can't believe it either," replied Yachi. She then told Mei that she didn't know how to respond to him.

"You should totally bring him to a romantic location to tell him!" squealed Mei. "You know, like one of those places where you can overlook the city at night."

Yachi sweatdropped at how dramatic Mei was being. "Uhh... I don't think there's a place like that around here..."

"Do you want me to scout for locations for you?" Mei asked.

"Uhhh... No, it's okay," Yachi nervously smiled back. She decided to gently reject her idea since Mei looked so enthusiastic about it. She concluded that Mei had been watching too many dramas recently.

"Wait! You should give him a card too!" she suggested with a laugh. "Like the first time you 'confessed' to him."

Yachi flinched at her suggestion, recalling her past embarrassment. But after her video chat with Mei ended, she found herself writing a card anyway. She initially thought what she wrote was fairly clever until she brought the card to school the next day.

In the hallway, she panicked about how the content of the card was too cheesy. She started to overthink possible scenarios that might happen if he did read the card. She thought Tsukishima would even reconsider being her boyfriend once he read it. _"Ha? This was all you could come up with?"_ she imagined him saying as she freaked out. She regretted ever bringing the card to school.

"Good morning Yachi," said Yamaguchi. Yachi got so startled from her train of thought that she let go of whatever was in her hands. Yamaguchi apologized for scaring her and picked up the card for her. But seeing that it had Tsukishima's name on it, he decided to hand the card to him instead. "I think this is for you," he said with a snicker.

"No! Wait!" cried out Yachi as she tried to grab the card out of Tsukishima's hands. But the tall blond quickly pulled it out of her reach and above her head.

He smirked and said, "So is this one from you this time?"

"It is," she admitted. "But- Wait! No! Don't open it!"

Tsukishima raised an eyebrow. "Why not? It's for me, isn't it?"

"Yes, but I didn't intend on giving it to you now!"

"Why not?"

"It's too cheesy!"

"Oh?" Tsukishima said with a mischievous grin. "I guess I'll open it now then."

"Gah! No!" Yachi attempted to jump to grab the card, but of course Tsukishima wouldn't let her and kept it out of her reach. When she realized that it was impossible to get the card back from him, she decided to hide her face in her hands and braced herself for the imminent embarrassment.

"The volleyball team will always be stars in my eyes, but there is only one Tsuki for me. I like you, Tsukishima. ~Yachi," read the card.

"I can see why you're embarrassed," Tsukishima joked. She turned even redder if that was possible. "Are you trying to learn from Takeda-sensei?"

"Stop teasing me. I'm embarrassed enough already."

As the two of them got settled in class, she wondered if this meant that they were a couple and if she was actually his girlfriend now. She ended up being so giddy about it that she couldn't stop grinning.

With his head on his desk, turned away from her to hide his own face, Tsukishima slipped a piece of paper to her with a little note. It asked her, "Do you want to go out on Saturday?" Of course, her answer was yes.

* * *

Tsukishima knew that Yachi had liked him back, but he didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to be disappointed if he was wrong. So he was a little too happy that she told him that she liked him back. It also didn't leave him room to doubt anymore.

"I wonder if today's practice will be just as eventful as yesterday's," mentioned Ennoshita as they setup the gym for practice.

"Huh? What happened yesterday?" asked Kageyama.

"What? How could you forget about that?" said Hinata. "The whole team was talking about how Tsukishima confessed that he liked Yachi yesterday."

"Oh right." Kageyama then turned to Tsukishima to ask, "Did Yachi reject you yet?"

"Oy! Don't put him in a bad mood," Tanaka warned Kageyama as if he was also expecting that Tsukishima was rejected.

"Yeah, Tsukishima can be scary," added Nishinoya.

"Why is that question even more irritating when it's coming from Kageyama's mouth?" Tsukishima commented to Yamaguchi.

"So she did reject you?" Kageyama asked anyway.

"No," Tsukishima simply replied.

"I bet he's lying," Hinata commented with a snicker.

Irritated with their stupidity, Tsukishima was about to approach Hinata and Kageyama, but Yachi grabbed his wrist before he could do anything. Her legs were trembling and her eyes were filled with worry as if asking him not to do anything rash.

"You shouldn't fight while Yachi's here," Tanaka warned him. "She was pale as a ghost the last time she witnessed one."

"Yeah, Tsukishima! You shouldn't fight in front of the girl you like," Hinata added.

Tsukishima was even more annoyed especially since he couldn't do anything about it. So he just smirked and told them, "You'd better watch your backs when Yachi isn't around."

Hinata and Kageyama both flinched at the thought. "Yachi! Save us!" Hinata pleaded.

"You shouldn't have provoked him in the first place, Hinata," Yachi sweat-dropped. "A- And I like him back so of course I'll take his side."

The team froze is shock. Their cute and sweet manager had just admitted to liking the saltiest member of the team. "W- why would you like him, Yachi?" asked Hinata with worry.

"Tsukishima is actually really nice," she replied with a blush. They stared at her as if she just told them that pigs could fly. "No! He really is!" she insisted. But their expressions still hadn't changed. "He is!"

* * *

On Saturday, Tsukishima got ready to meet with Yachi in front of the Sakanoshita store. When Akiteru found out that Tsukishima was going to spend time with her, he attempted to tease his little brother about it as he pick out his clothes. "You have to look nice for Yachi on your date," he joked with a grin. Tsukishima just smirked back and didn't bother to tell him it really was a date.

When he got there, he could see that Yachi was nervously waiting for him. She turned to look up at him and froze. He started to wonder if she was still breathing.

"I'm going to die seeing you in casual clothes," she commented as she covered her blushing face with her hands.

Tsukishima smirked at her reaction. "Should I wear my school uniform next time? Or even my gym clothes? I wouldn't want you to die on me."

He didn't think what he wore was very impressive. He just had jeans, a white t-shirt and a hoodie over it. But he figured that the change from what he usually wore around her solidified the fact that they were on a date and not at school.

He noticed that Yachi had put more effort in her appearance than usual. She wore a summer dress and also had some make-up on. He wasn't used to seeing her with make-up and he couldn't say that he actually liked it. But he didn't really care because he thought it was cute that she wanted to look nice for him.

"I got movie tickets," Tsukishima told her. "I still don't really know what we should do on a date."

Yachi smiled back at him and thanked him for the tickets. "We can figure out other things we can do together as we figure out what we like. That's assuming that you want to go on more dates with me," she said with a blush.

She held out a clear cake carrier that revealed a strawberry shortcake inside. She learned that he liked it from Yamaguchi. The carrier was a reusable plastic container, meaning that the cake was likely homemade. Tsukishima blushed a bit, imagining how much effort she must have put into making it.

But suddenly, Yachi had been pushed forward towards him and he caught her as she was about to fall. Tsukishima initially thought that a little kid had bumped into her. But with a closer look, he saw that the kid was Hinata Shoyou, who was crouched down, playing with a dog that was left outside of the convenience store.

"What the heck are you doing here?" Tsukishima asked with irritation in his voice.

But when he heard Yachi freaking out, he turned back his attention to her. "T- The cake!" she cried out as she grabbed her head. The cake carrier had fallen on the ground and now the cake was upside-down with its frosting smudged on the sides of the container.

Tsukishima had been annoyed at Hinata many times, but during this instance, he was furious. Not only was it a strawberry shortcake, but it was homemade and Yachi must have worked hard to make it.

"You idiot! What are you doing?" Kageyama yelled out to Hinata. That was when Tsukishima saw three more heads peaking around the corner.

"So they had been watching us?" Tsukishima said with a groan.

"They're so cute, going on a date together," commented Tanaka.

"I can't believe Tsukishima is growing up," teared up Nishinoya.

"So why are all of you here?!" Tsukishima asked with his eyebrow twitching, trying keeping his cool.

"We just wanted to make sure that our beloved manager was being treated well," Tanaka said with a grin. Tobikomi appeared behind Tanaka and just growled at Tsukishima.

"I think you all just wanted a death wish instead," said Tsukishima with an ominous aura. Hinata, Kageyama, Tanaka and Nishinoya all flinched at his expression.

"Y- Yachi...," Hinata stuttered as he pleaded to her for mercy. "Please save us."

"Y- Yeah, Yachi's here so you can't do anything to us!" cried out Tanaka.

Tsukishima turned to look at Yachi and saw that she had placed her hands over her eyes. "I- I'm not looking Tsukishima," she shyly said. "So you can go ahead."

He couldn't help but feel special because she really did like him more than the rest of the team. When he knew that nothing would stop him now, Tsukishima turned back to them with a darkened face and an evil smile. The four of them quickly fled the area, fearing for their lives while dragging Tobikomi with them.

When they were nowhere in sight, Tsukishima sighed and told Yachi, "This isn't how I wanted our first date to go."

"It's fine," Yachi replied with a timid smile. "I'm a bit sad about the cake though. I really wanted you to enjoy it." She picked up the cake carrier, but Tsukishima took it off her hands. Yachi's eyes grew wide when he ate the cake anyway. "Wait, no! You don't have to eat it! I can make another one!"

"It's really good you know," he commented. "It's not like it's dirty since it was still in the container."

The two of them decided to go inside Coach Ukai's store for now to eat the rest of the cake. But just as they sat down, the two of them saw a camera flash and quickly turned to see where it came from.

"Crap, I forgot to turn it off," they heard someone mutter.

Tsukishima got up to find his brother around the corner. "Of course you're here too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now I'm on Tumblr because I wanted another tsukiyachi outlet. What's wrong with me? Lol. If you have Tumblr, you can follow me there if you want. https://mimi-cee-hq.tumblr.com
> 
> I was initially planning on completing the story in the next chapter but I keep thinking of more ideas. I even wanted to have a Yamaguchi x Mei subplot but I made a side story instead. I'll probably post it here later.
> 
> I also have another tsukiyachi longfic idea with funny premise that I want to write after this one is done. You can user subscribe me if you're interested. It might even turn into a Yachi x first years series but I don't know if it's possible for me to write that many longfics. Lol. We'll see. I should just focus on getting the next chapter done. :)


	13. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Other people react to Tsukishima and Yachi dating and Yachi decides to try something different. (Last chapter for Tsukishima and Yachi's story.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter for Tsukishima and Yachi's story :(. I had another idea but when I reread my notes, I thought it was kind of lame. lol. I was originally going to end it here anyway. After this, it'll be about three chapters of Yamaguchi and Mei's side story, which was originally going to be a subplot, but it worked out better as a side story. It'll be a bit more serious and more about volleyball, but it'll still be cute in the end. I guess I was craving a more volleyball-centric story because I actually play volleyball. Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter.

**Chapter 12**

A practice match was organized before the Inter High tournament started. Takeda-sensei had called up Nekomata if they could go to Tokyo with their team. They took the train this time around and thankfully, the train wasn't as crowded as usual since they decided to leave during off-peak hours.

Yachi had fallen asleep on Tsukishima's shoulder during the ride. She had told Tsukishima that she had been working on her literature paper the night before and had completely forgot to prepare for their practice match in Tokyo until it was later in the night. Tsukishima positioned his arm around her shoulders, trying to place her in a more comfortable position. Her head now rested on his chest as she continued to snooze.

"I still can't believe that they're dating," whispered Hinata.

"Yeah, I don't think I can get used to it," Kageyama muttered back.

"You two aren't very good at whispering are you?" said Tsukishima.

When they arrived near their destination, Yachi woke up, still a bit drowsy. When she noticed that she had fallen asleep on Tsukishima, she apologized repeatedly with a blushing face.

"It's fine," said Tsukishima. "I'm your boyfriend, aren't I?"

Yachi continued to blush over the word 'boyfriend.' The first time she had associated the word boyfriend with Tsukishima was around when Hinata had asked her about her secret boyfriend. But this time, he really was her boyfriend.

As they left the train, Tsukishima smiled to himself, knowing that his comment had placed a giddy grin on her face.

At the Nekoma High gym, Yamamoto was excited for their practice match with Karasuno. He commented to the team about how they were going to crush those crows.

"I wonder how Hinata is doing without their third years," said Kenma. He was glad that Fukunaga was captain and not him. His teammates had strongly considered him, but he had adamantly said no.

"Oh yeah," added Yamamoto with tears streaming from his eyes. "I forgot that Shimizu-senpai won't be there anymore." He suddenly found some newfound energy when he remembered the petite blond. "But they still have their other cute manager on their team!"

The Karasuno team entered their gym and Kenma closely watched them. After something caught his eye, he told Yamamoto, "Actually, you probably shouldn't say anything about that." He continued to watch their opponents and saw Yachi and Tsukishima walking in side-by-side. He overheard Yachi being nervous about keeping score for the game.

"You'll be fine," said Tsukishima. "You practised a lot with the recordings of our previous matches."

"But I can't pause the game like in the video," she replied. As she sighed, Kenma saw Tsukishima smiling at her expression.

Kenma also sighed, wishing that Yaku was still here. He didn't want to deal with Yamamoto causing trouble. He then decided that he just shouldn't bother and just leave it to Fukunaga to deal with.

"Hey, Kenma- Gah!" Hinata started to greet him. "Why is Kuroo here?" he said as he pointed a finger at their former teammate.

Kuroo just laughed at him. "I just wanted to visit my lovely kouhais," he replied with a grin. "I also wanted to see how you kids have changed too."

"Of course we're going to beat them," taunted Hinata as he stuck out his tongue at him.

When Lev joined their conversation, Hinata mentioned that he was amazed that Kenma was now a third year.

"Nothing really changed," replied Kenma. "I'm only months older than when you saw me last. You are too."

"I grew even taller though!" Lev said proudly and Hinata gushed with jealousy.

"I'm glad your team didn't change too much," said Yamamoto. "Your cute manager is still here." He then stood straight up as if he felt a shiver down his spine. He instinctively turned his head to swiftly scan the area to find the source of the ominous feeling.

"Oya?" said Kuroo with a grin. "I think I see something interesting."

When the match started, Kenma noticed that Tsukishima would sometimes smile at Yachi in between points. But even with this distraction, he was still able to clearly analyze what was going on in the match.

"Tora," Kenma gestured to call him over. When Yamamoto was close enough, he whispered, "It seems like Tsukishima is playing well because he has a crush on Yachi."

"What?" he exclaimed with surprise. "Are you serious?" Of course, this pumped him up because he wanted to show off to Yachi too and yelled out a battle scream.

"Why is he acting like that?" asked Kinoshita.

"I have no idea," answered Ennoshita.

"Bring it on!" Tanaka shouted back.

Noticing that Yamamoto was trying to stare him down, Tsukishima just wondered what his problem was.

As the game went on, Tsukishima left the court to switch with Nishinoya after he lost his serve. He decided to take a seat on the bench beside Yachi instead of standing on the sidelines with the rest of his teammates.

"You were great!" Yachi smiled at him.

"So you were watching me?" he asked with a smirk.

"Of course!" she smiled back. Tsukishima leaned over to take a peek at her score sheet. But he noticed that Yamamoto kept glancing at their direction. He smirked at him, then placed his arm around Yachi to intentionally provoke him.

"What do you think you're doing?!" yelled out Yamamoto in the middle of the match as he held a pointed finger towards Tsukishima. "You can't just put your arm around a girl so casually like that!"

"Oh?" Tsukishima said with a taunting grin. "Why not?"

"You're taking advantage of a cute and sweet girl like Yachi!" he scolded.

"What is he talking about?" Yachi quietly asked Tsukishima with a bit of a blush since his arm was still around her. He just shrugged as if he didn't know.

"I never thought that Tsukishima would be the type to show public displays of affection," said Ennoshita.

"Knowing him, he's probably just trying to piss someone off," said Kageyama.

"Oy, Tora," Tanaka quietly warned him. "You should stop and leave them alone. You're just embarrassing yourself."

While Yamamoto was still confused, Tobikomi could be heard growling in the background.

"It's okay, it's not your fault," Hinata said to Yamamoto to reassure him. "Most people wouldn't think that they're dating."

While Tsukishima glared at Hinata, Tora froze in shock and then wilted because he was trying to show off for no reason. Kenma commented to himself that he had miscalculated. Kuroo just laughed his head off like a hyena at the whole scene.

* * *

Over the next few weeks of dating, Yachi found out that Tsukishima liked to tease her often. He would do it in class, during practice, and when he'd walk her home. He liked making her blush or flustered especially when it was on the topic of being his girlfriend. Yachi didn't mind. She liked the attention from him and it made him smile. But because he did it so often, there were times when she couldn't tell if he was serious or not - especially since he had a good poker face.

The day before the tournament, Tsukishima casually rummaged through his bag and pulled out an object. "Could you wear this at the tournament?" he asked Yachi.

She opened it up, examined it, and then froze. "W- Why would you want me to wear this?"

"So that I won't have to worry about you during the tournament," he replied. "It'll help me concentrate."

She stared at it again, with a blush creeping in as she imagined herself wearing it. She looked back at Tsukishima with a look full of doubt. "I don't believe you," she replied.

He just shrugged in response. "It'll help me not cause a scene," he said with a smirk.

"Not cause a scene?" she asked. "I'll probably cause a scene. Everyone will be looking at me weird. And then the referee won't like me for causing a disturbance, and then I'll be kicked out of the gym and then I won't be able to help the team, and what if you lose because of me, and then-"

"It'll be fine," said Tsukishima. "There are full stands of people cheering on the second floor. The referees will be perfectly fine with that." When Yachi still wasn't convinced, he added, "It'll also help the team calm down before the first match." With a glint in his eye, he asked, "You like me, right?"

Yachi pouted for a moment before she replied, "Maybe." Tsukishima chuckled at her response. "Okay, fine. I'll wear it. But only because it's true."

So the day of the tournament came, and the team still got nervous as usual. It seemed like nothing had changed from last year's reaction. Yachi tried to encourage them, saying that all the other teams were probably scared of them because they had gone to the nationals. Hinata nervously reminded himself that everyone was expecting them to win now. Ennoshita couldn't believe that he had to captain for an official game, and he didn't remember what he was supposed to do. Yamaguchi was nervous too and remembered all of the times he messed up his serve.

"Yachi, you should put it on," Tsukishima told her. When Yachi still looked at him with a doubtful stare, he added, "Just trust me."

So when Yachi wore the thing that Tsukishima instructed her to wear, the team took a look at it and started laughing out loud.

"What the heck is that?"

"We all know you two like each other but really?"

Yachi felt her cheeks warm up, but smiled since the guys were able to calm down. She was relieved and started to not mind wearing the headband as much.

As the teams warmed up for their first set of games, Yachi walked across the gym to grab the first aid kit from the van. She overhead a conversation from the other court that was beside her.

"Oy, their cute manager is back. I'm going to try to get her attention."

"Are you kidding me?" asked Kindaichi. "You're seriously going to try again?"

"She's defenseless this time," replied Yahaba. "Her team is too busy practising their serves."

Yachi turned towards them to see a volleyball rolling towards her. She bent down to pick up the ball and Yahaba thanked her for getting it for him. But when she looked up at him with a smile, he froze in his place. Yachi was confused for a moment, wondering why he had flinched like that. But then she remembered what her headband said. "I love Tsukishima Kei. Go away."

By this point, the whole Karasuno team had finished their warm up and laughed at the whole scene. Tsukishima walked over beside Yachi and gave Yahaba a look before he fled to his team, hoping that none of them saw that.

"See it worked," commented Tsukishima. "I didn't have to worry about you because you were wearing that."

Yachi pouted a bit in response. "It's still a bit embarrassing," she said with a blush. "I still can't tell if you're serious or if you're just teasing me."

"Why not both?" he gave her a smirk.

After they had won their first match, Sawamura, Sugawara, Azumane and Shimizu waited for them in the hallway. They were all happy to see them as they caught up on the past few months.

'You've grown, Hinata," commented Sugawara with a smile.

"Did I get that much better?" he asked.

"Oh, I actually meant your height."

"Really?" Hinata said with stars in his eyes.

"Uh... Yacchan," said Azumane. "W- Why are you wearing that?"

Yachi, realizing that she was still wearing the headband, promptly removed it from her head.

"It's a repellant," Tsukishima answered for her and the team burst out into laughter.

"Oy, Daichi," Sugawara whispered to Sawamura with concern, "Is the team treating Yachi okay? Do you know what's going on?"

Tanaka, overhearing Sugawara's comment explained, "Don't worry. Tsukishima is just dating Yachi."

"EHHHHH?" their three senpais said in shock.

"Tsukishima," Sawamura said his name sternly as he crossed his arms. "Are you taking her on regular dates? Do you pay for the meals? Do you walk her home afterwards?"

"Yes."

Sawamura blinked a couple of times, expecting a different reaction. If Tsukishima was treating her well, none of them could complain about it. They were still curious about how it even happened. But as they watched Tsukishima and Yachi chat, tease and banter with each other, they thought they were pretty cute together.

"What?! You're dating Yachi?!" Akiteru yelled out from down the hallway as a few bystanders stared at him.

"You didn't tell him?" asked Yachi. Tsukishima just responded with a shrug.

* * *

The next Monday after the tournament, Yachi tried to do something she wouldn't usually do. Tsukishima teased her all the time so shouldn't she be able to do it too? But as she waited for him to come to practice, Yachi's legs shook. She was dreading Tsukishima's reaction.

"Mei... I think Tsukishima's going to hate me!"

"Pfft. I doubt it. That guy likes you too much," laughed Mei.

"But what if he doesn't like it?" Yachi whimpered. "What if he breaks up with me?"

"Oy," Hinata snickered to Nishinoya. "Did you see Tsukishima?"

"That was hilarious," he replied. "It would have been funny if it was there the whole day. The whole school probably saw it. Do you think he noticed by now?"

Suddenly, Tsukishima opened the gym door yelling, "Which one of you idiots put this on my back?" Behind him were Tanaka and Yamaguchi snickering at the sheet of paper that he held. It said, "I blush around Yachi Hitoka."

Yachi flinched and jumped behind Mei as Tsukishima angrily questioned each of his teammates. When Tsukishima finally again asked who put that paper on his back, Yachi slowly put her hand up to admit that she did it. "I- I... Umm... Because you made me wear that headband, I thought it was... fair?" When Tsukishima still didn't say anything, she added, "I'm sorry! Please don't break up with me!"

Tsukishima burst out into laughter, amused that his cute girlfriend had decided to prank him. He walked up to her and crouched down to her eye level, and Yachi shyly turned her head away. "So you wanted to get revenge for that?" he asked her with a smirk. "I thought you enjoyed wearing that headband," he teased.

"I-," Yachi turned to face him as she started to reply, but she was cut off by Tsukishima, who gave her a quick kiss on the lips. He then rubbed the hair on her head and walked onto the court. Yachi blushed profusely, wondering how she was going to survive being his girlfriend.

* * *

**Bonus**

When realization hit, Tsukishima blushed as he stood on the court. He couldn't stop a stupid grin from forming so he covered his face with his hands.

"Look! Look! Tsukishima is blushing!" Tanaka said as he probed Tsukishima.

"Yachi's sign was right! He does blush around her!" laughed Nishinoya.

"Shut up," Tsukishima said as he turned away while still hiding his face in his hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heehee! I hope you enjoyed that. I still can't believe I wrote 12 chapters + prologue and actually completed a multi-chapter work. This is the first time it's ever happened so I'm really happy. Thanks for all of the support! I loved reading all of your comments and how much you enjoyed this cute and funny story I had in my head. I hope you'll stick around for the side story, which I'll probably update at least weekly since I've already written it out.


	14. To Stand on the Court Again (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next school year rolls around and Yamaguchi is disappointed that he's not a starting player. When he feels like there isn't much more he could do, the girl in front of him tells him, "I think you can be a starter, and I don't mean that lightly." Then she backs it up with her actions. A volleyball story about Yamaguchi's second year with a heart-warming ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was written a while back. I haven't read the manga so some things might be inaccurate. (I read spoilers though.) The pacing is also different with this story and I'm making it two chapters instead of three because it flowed better. (The second chapter will be long.) I hope you still like it even though it's not fluffy like Tsukishima and Yachi's story. The genre is hurt/comfort and friendship with a bit of romance.

Spring had come and gone, but not a lot had changed for Yamaguchi. The third years had graduated and the team had taken in some first years. But with the changes that took place around him, he felt the same. During the last practice game, it became clear that he was the only one in his year that had yet to improve. Sure he had his one weapon, his jump float serve, but lately it felt like a burden instead. His float was the thing that gave him the opportunity to stand on the court with his teammates, but he wanted more. He wanted to be a starting player again. He remembered the games he had played in junior high and missed them. He had been able to hit and block for his team and longed for the feeling of playing on the court again for an entire game. But Coach Ukai had defaulted the starting positions to the current third years in addition to last year's starters.

Hinata, Kageyama, Tsukishima, Tanaka, Ennoshita, Kinoshita, and Nishinoya. They were the starting players for the current year. There was no room for him. He wasn't surprised when the coach showed them the starting line up for the practice game. But he had held his breath anyway in hopes of seeing his name there.

It didn't help that during their practices, Coach Ukai had to prioritize coaching the new team. They didn't have Sawamura, Azumane and Sugawara to rely on anymore. Their new team felt lacking and the coach needed to figure out how to get them prepared for the next preliminaries. Yamaguchi understood that their coach had enough to worry about, but he was sad that it left players like him feeling orphaned. Fortunately, the coach understood what it was like to be a bench warmer. He would have liked to have an assistant coach to help with the other players, but it would take some time to find one suitable for their team.

Yamaguchi looked up to see Yachi dragging one of her friends to their practice. She looked a little flustered as Yachi chatted with the coach. Yamaguchi recognized her from his class but couldn't remember her name.

Afterwards, the coach did some defensive training with the team. At the far side of the net, he stood on a table to spike the balls to the team. Tsukishima and Kageyama stood right in front of the coach on the opposite side of the net to block the ball. Kinoshita was off to the front left to get any spikes or tips that landed in his area. Nishinoya stood in the back left to get those strong cross-court spikes. Tanaka stood in the far in the back to get any long balls that would hit the top of the block and Ennoshita covered the straight. Hinata waited on the sidelines until the coach told them to swap the front and back row players.

With the coach instructing these players on their positioning, Yamaguchi, Narita and the first years stood by to watch. Yamaguchi grew frustrated. He didn't want to observe them. He wanted to play. He could even be practising other skills right now. But the coach did a surprising thing afterwards. He asked his female classmate to come stand on the box and to spike in his place. The coach observed her hitting skills and smiled in satisfaction. "That was great, Mei." said Ukai. "Could you come back tomorrow to help with practice?"

Mei looked over at Yachi with hesitation, but Yachi nodded excitedly back at her. "Sure," Mei replied with a smile.

The coach later explained to the team that they recruited Mei to be a sort of temporary junior assistant coach and that she would be able to help with certain practice drills. The team was fairly excited to learn about the new addition to their team. She smirked and commented on how Yachi never told her how rowdy their team was.

A few days later, the coach had split the team into two groups, the starters and non-starters. Yamaguchi felt his stomach tighten in a knot. The non-starters were going to practice some of the drills in a separate gym. The coach told them that he wanted them to improve because he saw potential in them and wanted Karasuno to be a strong team for years to come. That seemed to inspire the new first years, but Yamaguchi didn't want to wait for his third year to become a starter.

The coach had given instructions to Mei on what drills he wanted the non-starters to work on in the other gym. They started off with practising their serves, so Yamaguchi practised his jump float serve like usual. Mei came up to him later and asked about it. They got into a conversation about how he had approached Shimada and practised outside of the school. He explained that he had wanted a fighting chance to be on the court, and that he had gotten it as their pinch server, but he wanted to be a starter. Mei seemed to understand his sentiment.

Back in class, Yamaguchi realized that Mei actually sat in front of him but never really noticed. It seemed like she didn't realize it either. One day she asked him, "Are you serious about being a starter?"

Yamaguchi nodded. "I want to, but I'm a middle blocker. Tsukishima and Hinata are essential for our team and Narita is there as back-up if anything happens to them." Yamaguchi felt stuck. He didn't know what else to work on other than improving the success rate of his floating serves.

"I think you can be a starter," commented Mei, "and I don't mean that lightly." She started listing out the different approaches he could take. He could try to go for the right wing spiker position. She explained that since most aces are left wing spikers, most blocks will occur on their right side of the court. "Kageyama's blocks are great when he's in the front row because of his height," she continued, "but Ennoshita's blocks are a bit short. Maybe he could be a left wing spiker instead. He seemed more comfortable there." She assumed that Yamaguchi was good at blocking since he was a middle blocker and probably had a lot of practice blocking in junior high. "You're pretty tall too," she commented as she examined his stature. "I wonder if you're the third tallest on the team. No wait, Narita is pretty tall too. Maybe the fourth then?"

The two of them also discussed the possibility of Yamaguchi being a left wing spiker. He could improve on his spiking form which would make his spikes more powerful. "You already have a good and stable jumping form from practising your jump floats," she mentioned. "You can use that as a foundation for your spikes."

While Mei continued giving him further guidance, a warm feeling started to fill up inside of Yamaguchi. The discouragement that he felt had disappeared. Her words had allowed him to see the opportunities in front of him.

"Your receives suck though," she added with a grin. "You'll need to improve on that if you want to be a wing spiker. You weren't able to get the dig when the opponents attacked off of your servers. Hmm... the libero could technically swap with a wing spiker, but with your team, middle blockers need it more," she laughed.

"Wait, how did you know my digs were bad during games?" Yamaguchi asked.

"I asked Yachi for the video footage of your games," she replied. "I also asked for information on everyone's position. Apparently, Tsukishima had given her a list already," she mentioned with a smirk. 

Yamaguchi was amazed at how serious she was with helping him and the other players. Her position was only temporary as well. "Anyway, for a short term goal, I think you need to prioritize on your receives, at least, if you want to be able to serve as long as possible during games. Your long term goal could be to improve your spikes."

Yamaguchi started to feel a little overwhelmed by the wealth of information that Mei had for him, but he was encouraged. Other than his floats, nobody really saw any potential in him. Even then, he had to believe in himself before anyone else believed in him. But this was the first time someone really thought he could do it and confirmed it with their actions.

"I don't think you'll have a problem with this," said Mei. "You took the time and initiative to work on your float serves. You just need to work on your other skills in the same way. When you do get better, the coach will naturally notice."

Yamaguchi gave Mei a soft smile. "Thanks Mei. I owe you a lot. I really appreciate this."

"You're welcome," replied Mei. She looked back at the diagrams she drew during their discussion. The smile she had on her face disappeared. If Yamaguchi didn't know any better, she actually looked kind of sad. He wanted to ask her about it but he decided not to pry.


	15. To Stand on the Court Again (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 - The next school year rolls around and Yamaguchi is disappointed that he's not a starting player. When he feels like there isn't much more he could do, the girl in front of him tells him, "I think you can be a starter, and I don't mean that lightly." Then she backs it up with her actions. A volleyball story about Yamaguchi's second year with a heart-warming ending.

Yamaguchi implemented Mei's suggestions and created a practice plan for himself. During the days they didn't have practice, he decided to practise his receives outside of the school. He asked Tsukishima if he could borrow his volleyball and stood outside to bump the ball to himself. Other days, he'd be able to convince Tsukishima to practice receiving with him. As he gradually improved, he wondered what else he could do. He remembered another conversation he had with Mei. Since he wanted to improve as fast as possible, Mei told him he should be smart with how he used his time. "There are no shortcuts to becoming a great volleyball player," she said. "Like with any skill in life, you need to practice over and over again. It takes consistent daily discipline over time. But what you can do is to use your time more efficiently."

So during one practice, Yamaguchi chose to turn down spiking practice with the rest of the middle blockers and wing spikers. Instead, he went to the other side of the net to join the liberos. His team was surprised that he didn't want to practise spiking, but he knew the fastest way to improve his digs was to receive spikes repeatedly like the liberos did. Tobikomi initially complained that two receivers were enough and told him to go practise his spikes like he was supposed to. But Nishinoya said that he wanted to try some setting so he gave his spot to him. As Yamaguchi received the spikes from his teammates, Mei looked at him with a smile knowing that he had a plan.

Mei later lent her volleyball to him. She told him a trick that some players used to practice their spiking. If he was going to use the team's spiking practice to work on his digs, he could use this to practise spiking alone. She hung her volleyball from a tree and asked him to run up and swing at it. After trying, Yamaguchi felt like he could jump higher so she adjusted the ball accordingly. When they got the ball at a comfortable height, he did a few warm up hits before Mei gave him some suggestions. "Try to visualize yourself spiking from different locations of the court as you practice: left, middle, right as well as from the back. Also, think about where the block might be."

"Umm... Thanks so much Mei," Yamaguchi shyly said. "It's really encouraging to have someone guide me through this."

"You're welcome," she grinned. She took a melancholic look at the hanging volleyball before she asked, "You don't have your own volleyball, do you?" Yamaguchi shook his head. "You can have mine," she smiled.

Yamaguchi opened his mouth in surprise. "Y-You're giving this to me?" he said, pointing at the volleyball. He suddenly realized that she had made the investment to own a volleyball and must have bought it for a reason. "A-Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yeah, I don't need my volleyball anymore," she smiled. But when she thought that Yamaguchi wasn't looking, she let out a sigh.

During the next few weeks, Yamaguchi consistently practiced his receives and spikes outside of practice. But at the summer inter high tournament, he was still only used as a pinch server. He persevered and kept working hard until Ukai let a first year start in a practice match. He hated it. He didn't understand why the coach had looked over him and placed a first year wing spiker in the match.

He continued to practice his receives with Mei. She threw the ball down at him and he bumped the ball. She caught the ball at a height near her waist. "You need to get the ball higher," she said. "The setter won't be able to set well if the ball isn't over his head." Out of frustration, Yamaguchi stopped practising and he didn't reply her.

Mei didn't say anything initially. She knew that all he could do was to keep practising. But when she saw how depressed he was during class as well, she decided to address his frustrations. "I wasn't going to say this out of respect for Coach Ukai, but I think that first year sucks. He has power, but half of his spikes hit the net. His receives are bad and his technique is sloppy. I honestly think that Coach Ukai is just reacting to what happened at the tournament, and is trying different things. If you don't want the coach to feel the need to grasp at straws, then you need to be a more reliable player." She took a breath and sighed, "I know it's hard, but you can do it."

Yamaguchi didn't feel encouraged right away, but when the disappointment gradually wore off, he was thankful for her direct words. He wasn't there yet but one day he would be.

One opportunity did presented itself, but not without some initiative on Yamaguchi's part. He had asked the coach if he could try to be the right wing spiker in the next game because his blocking skills could help against the opponent's straight. The coach agreed and he was placed in the next match.

"Hey, Yamaguchi," said Hinata with a knowing smile, "do you want to try what we practised?"

Yamaguchi recalled another conversation in his classroom. He had told Mei that he had understood that he needed to be a more consistent player, but he had felt like he needed more of an edge. She had suggested to think about his team as a whole and to consider whom he would be playing with. Yamaguchi had later drawn out the positions of regular starting players. If he took a wing spiker's spot, he would probably be beside Hinata because the coach usually put Tsukishima between Tanaka and Kageyama. That meant that when he was in the front row, Hinata would be with him the majority of the time. So during their team's spiking practice, he had asked Hinata if he could test out something.

"Sure, let's try it," grinned Yamaguchi and then turned his focus back on the game. When Nishinoya was able to give a clean pass to Kageyama, Hinata ran to the right side of the net. The middle blocker on the other team was lured to where Hinata was and one blocker marked Tanaka at the other end of the net. Hinata jumped and the two blockers on the other side mirrored him. But a tempo later, Yamaguchi ran up to the middle of the court and freely spiked without any blockers.

It worked and their tactic had paid off. At practice, Hinata and Yamaguchi had run into each other a lot with their first few attempts. They had solved it by having Hinata run at first tempo while having Yamaguchi go at second tempo. Kageyama had to slow down his set by using a taller arch and Yamaguchi had to adjust to doing his running approach diagonally.

Seeing Yamaguichi's overall performance in the game, Coach Ukai decided to make him a starter. He was pleased with how much Yamaguchi grew. "With how much you've improved, I'm confident that our team will get even further now." That compliment meant a lot to Yamaguchi. He was a starting player, not by chance or accident, but by his hard work. He was so happy that he felt like he could cry. His fellow second years, Tsukishima, Hinata, Yachi, and Kageyama, were all happy for him knowing how much he wanted this. He couldn't wait to tell the good news to Mei the next day. He wanted to thank her for all of her help.

He remembered back to the day when Mei had come to their gym early. The net had been up and she had been alone practising her serves. When Yamaguchi had come in, she had gotten embarrassed that he had caught her serving. It had looked like she was trying to do a float serve. Yamaguchi had guided her how to do it. "I can't do a jump serve," she had told him. "Is it possible to do a standing float serve?"

Later, when Yamaguchi had asked her how she knew so much about volleyball, she had said that her mother had been a volleyball player and had taught her since she was young. They had gone to the park together where her mom had trained her on how to receive, volley and spike. Her mom had tried to teach her as much as she could without an actual team. Mei had even joined a private volleyball club for a bit when they could afford to. "I tried out for the girls' volleyball team in first year, but that didn't work out," Mei had said with a painful smile. "Even though I'm fairly tall for a Japanese girl, I can't really jump."

"That must have been pretty discouraging," Yamaguchi had noted. He had started to see how she had been able to sympathize with him as a benchwarmer.

So the day after he became a starting player, Yamaguichi looked for Mei to tell her what had happened during the practice game, but she was absent during class. At lunch, he asked Yachi if she knew where Mei was. "Oh, she's just at a doctor's appointment," she said. "Her knee started hurting again. She should be back now."

"What?" Yamaguchi exclaimed in shock. "Again? You mean this has happened before?"

"Yeah. That's why she stopped playing volleyball. She was the ace in middle school."

Yamaguchi ran back to his classroom as he thought of all the clues that he had previously missed.

_"Try to visualize yourself spiking from different locations of the court as you practice."_

_"Yeah, I don't need my volleyball anymore."_

_"I can't do a jump serve. Is it possible to do a standing float serve?"_

_"I tried out for the girls' volleyball team in first year, but that didn't work out."_

_"I can't really jump."_

When Yamaguchi found her, she wondered why he was out of breath. Yamaguchi walked up to her and struggled to find the words to say. He gently held her wrists and asked, "Why don't you play volleyball anymore?"

She looked at him confused. "It's because I can't jump very high," she answered as if it was obvious.

But that wasn't the answer Yamaguchi was looking for. "Why don't you play volleyball anymore?" he asked again with tears starting to fill his eyes.

Mei's eyes started to water as well. "If you ask me like that, how could I not cry too?" She explained that she injured herself over something stupid and couldn't play anymore. She wasn't allowed to jump because of the pain and the pressure that it put on her knee. Because her volleyball career had ended when she barely started high school, she would never experience what could have been her peak years. She couldn't handle the pain of not being able to play anymore, so she had avoided anything related to volleyball. But then Yachi dragged her into their practice and she learned how Yamaguchi had fought to be on the court with his float serves. When he had told her that he still wanted to be a starter, she genuinely wanted to see him improve. "But then practising with you reminded me of the all times I practised, and then I wanted to play again, and..." She started to cry even more.

Yamaguchi wrapped his arms around her as she continued to sob. He didn't give her light bits of encouragement about what she could do instead. Sure, she could be a coach in the future, but this wasn't the time to mention it. He let her mourn over what she had lost because she only avoided thinking about her injury and never let herself be sad over it. So he told her that it was fine to cry because she had cherished volleyball and all the memories she had playing it.

The next day, Mei couldn't make eye contact with Yamaguchi. When Tsukishima asked why she was acting strange, Yamaguchi just shrugged and thought that she was just embarrassed about crying yesterday. But behind them, he heard Yachi giggling and teasing Mei about something.

"Yamaguchi," she told him one day, "I need to tell you something." She shyly looked down at the floor, wondering how he'd take the news. "I'm going to join the girls' volleyball team as their manager and assistant." She explained to him that she had learned the girls' team wasn't doing so well. The time she had with him had made her realize that she enjoyed teaching volleyball to others. Yamaguchi said he was happy for her but was a little sad that he wouldn't see her during practice anymore. 

He had remembered the times when he had fun practising with her. There was once where she teased him with the hanging volleyball while he was practising his spikes. She had told him that she was going to adjust the height of the ball because he had looked like he was getting tired. Instead, she had pulled the ball up every time he tried to spike it and let out a gorgeous giggle. On a different day, during defensive practice with the other players, she had told him allow a straight spike through his block. He had listened to her the first few times but he had decided to block her spikes to tease her back. He was definitely going to miss having her around.

When Mei heard that he was a bit sad about her leaving, she blushed at his comment. She said she needed to tell him one more thing. "I think I like you, Yamaguchi."

"What?" Yamaguchi's jaw dropped. He tried to process what was going on. "What's happening? Pretty girls used to only talk to me about Tsukishima."

"You know I'm not like that," laughed Mei.

"I- I know, but I'm still shocked!" he stated.

Not knowing what else to say, Mei told him that he didn't have to respond right away or even like her back. "I just want to thank you for everything," she smiled.

Yamaguchi smiled back at her. They've both gone through a lot together and he was thankful that she was by his side. "Likewise."

Even though they saw each other in class every day, Yamaguchi would still come and say hi to her during the girls' practices. "I just want to see you in action," said Yamaguchi and Mei complained in response. "Actually, I just wanted to see the girl I like," he added.

Mei turned red, especially because the rest of the volleyball team heard what he said. "You can't just confess to me so casually like that!"

Yamaguchi just snickered at seeing how embarrassed she was. "I actually have something else for you too." He held the volleyball that she had given him and returned it to her. He told her that he had bought one and that she might need hers back. She still had powerful serves that she could use to help the girls' team improve. She could even try to help them receive float serves too if she practised. She considered what he said and took the ball back from him.

The spring inter high preliminaries came along for both the boys' and girls' teams. Yamaguchi told her what time their matches were so that, if she wanted to, she could call and see how her boyfriend's team was doing.

The girls' coach showed the team the setup for the first game. Mei gasped at seeing her name placed at the back right corner position where the server would be. She looked around at the other girls and realized that they had all expected it. "The girls wanted you to play a match again as thanks for how you've coached them. The other five players can cover the court if the other team is able to receive your serve. So just go and serve like usual and enjoy your moment on the court," the coach grinned at her.

The thought of standing on the court with the girls she worked with these past months made her cry. The players - no, her teammates - wanted to support her to make this possible. They gave her a jersey that they had hidden from her and told her to join them during their warm up before the match started.

When Mei stood on the court, she wanted to serve with no regrets. Remembering Yamaguchi's coaching, she hit a float serve over the net and her teammates erupted in cheer when it was an ace. The other team was confused as to why they were celebrating over the first point while her teammates hugged her. Their opponents were able to receive the next serve, but her other five teammates covered for her and defended her serve. Then she served two more aces before the other team got the point and she was substituted off.

Mei called Yamaguchi after the game to tell him what had happened. As she excitedly told him about her three ace serves, she realized that he had been expecting this phone call. "Hang on," she told him. "You knew!"

"I may have suggested the idea to one of the players," he said on the other line. "Or should I say, one of your teammates?"

Mei teared up as she called him a sneaky idiot to which he clarified that he was her sneaky idiot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the story. This story was born after I saw a manga spoiler and I wanted know if/when Yamaguchi became a starter. I was also inspired by a real story where a girls' college team let their injured teammate serve their set or match point and the other five players fought to win it.
> 
> I still find it amusing how Mei was originally created purely to listen to Yachi's antics. Then she grew to be a main character with her own back story. Let me know if you liked the story.
> 
> Also, if any of you are wondering what the stupid reason was for Mei's injury, she slipped and fell down a hill when she was chasing a squirrel. (Just in case you forgot that she's a mood.)
> 
> I'm a little sad that this story is done. I may end up posting my other tsukiyachi idea that I thought was lame. Depends on how I'm feeling about it. lol. I may add one-shots or epilogues to this story if I get any inspiration.
> 
> I do have a Yachi series idea that I'm playing around with that I mentioned on [Tumblr](https://mimi-cee-hq.tumblr.com/post/190875749157/amnesia-otome-game-yachi-edition). It may take months before anything really happens with that idea though.


	16. The Little Things - Valentine's Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tsukishima and Yachi have an unconventional Valentine's date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back on AO3 for a bit. I've been writing on Tumblr lately (mimi-cee-hq.tumblr.com). Someone requested me to write about their first Valentine's date. This is a short drabble of how I imagined it going. :)

Yachi was super excited about Valentine's day. Like a typical shoujo manga heroine, she wanted to try to make homemade chocolates. But seeing how excited Yachi was for Valentine's day, Tsukishima wasn't sure if he was supposed to do something special too. He didn't really want to. After all, if he wanted to do something nice for Yachi, he would have just done it already. He wouldn't have waited for Valentine's day 

While he was thinking about all this at home during dinner with his family, his mom asked why he looked like he was frustrated about something. Akiteru guessed it was about Valentine's day, and he hit the bullseye. So Tsukishima ended up explaining to his family that he didn't know what to do. 

"Why not bring her over?" asked his mom. "I'd love to meet her!" 

Tsukishima was first horrified at the suggestion because it's not a date of it's with family. But the more he thought about it, the more he groaned because he knew Yachi would like that. 

So when he told her the next day, of course she loved the idea. And then started panicking about it. "Should I bring food? What if they don't like it? What if his mom chokes and dies from it? And then Tsukishima's dad will hunt me down for revenge. And then Tsukishima will have to choose between me or his family, but I don't want him to have to do that and-" 

"Yachi, stop. You don't have to bring any food. You'll be fine," Tsukishima reassured her. 

When Valentine's day did come around, Yachi gave Tsukishima chocolates (and friendship chocolates for the team of course.) After school, she went with Tsukishima to his house for dinner. 

During dinner, the whole thing was awkward for Tsukishima because who bring their girlfriend to a family dinner as a Valentine's date? But Yachi and his mom loved it and they got along really well - which made sense because they're both so sweet. 

When Tsukishima walked her home afterwards, he wanted to do *something* that would actually make it feel like a date. But like he expected, all theatres and cafes were full. 

"Let's go to Coach Ukai's store!" 

"Are you serious?" 

So they treated each other with whatever they found in the store. Yachi got strawberry milk for Tsukishima; he got Fugashi for her. 

"Happy Valentine's day!" Yachi told him with a big grin. Then he hugged her because of how thankful he was to have her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it. You can check me out on Tumblr. I currently have an [ongoing SMAU](https://mimi-cee-hq.tumblr.com/post/613496811008802816/who-would-you-tell-first-smau-masterlist) (social media AU - storytelling through social media chats and posts). I actually like the plot for this one. It's a reader-insert story that has a tsukiyachi side story. Tsukishima and Yachi are married and she keeps thinking she's pregnant. :D You can tell how that will go.


End file.
